 | Issue: | Asia-Pacific 2004 |
| Article no.: | 8 | |
| Topic: | Life Goes Mobile | |
| Author: | Urpo Karjalainen | |
| Title: | Senior Vice-President | |
| Organisation: | Nokia Customer & Market Operations, Asia-Pacific Area | |
| PDF size: | 132KB |
About author
Urpo Karjalainen is Nokia’s Senior Vice-President for Customer & Market Operations in the Asia-Pacific Area. Prior to his present post, Urpo had served as the President of Nokia (China) Investment Co Ltd and Corporate Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Nokia China, as Vice-President of Strategic Marketing for Nokia Mobile Phones Asia-Pacific, and as Vice-President of Sales for Nokia Mobile Phones Asia-Pacific. Mr Karjalainen came to Nokia from Digital Equipment Corporation, where he played a role in different sales, marketing and strategy development management positions at the country and European levels.
Article abstract
Mobile communications have made it possible for everyone to stay in touch with the people and information that matter to them. Just a few years ago, fixed lines were the way to build telecommunication services; today, mobility is becoming a fundamental aspect affecting many areas of telecommunications. People expect high-speed access to the web – and to entertainment, information and e-commerce – wherever they are. Many services that are currently regarded as fixed are about to become mobile.
Full Article
The New Face of Mobile Communications Society Before the 1870s, no one would have thought it was possible to communicate instantaneously, person-to-person without being in the same place at the same time. The invention of the telephone by Sir Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 revolutionised human communication for ever. Almost a hundred years later, the creation of the mobile phone marked another milestone in the evolution of human communication, bringing mobility to telecommunications. When the first portable phone call was made in 1973, it opened doors for mobile communication, allowing for person-to-person communication, without the limitations of time and place. Mobile communications have made it possible for everyone to stay in touch with the people and information that matter to them. Around the world, the number of people using mobile devices continues to grow. The number of first-time mobile phone users is increasing, especially in markets with low penetration rates, such as India, China and Indonesia in the Asia-Pacific region. The more developed mobile phone markets are seeing the adoption of advanced devices, as features such as cameras and colour screens capture our imagination. Exciting developments in our industry will shape the future use of mobile devices. A new mobility industry is emerging in which mobile communications, information technology and media industries converge, and mobile devices that combine a mobile phone, digital camera and personal digital assistant (PDA) are just the first examples. The years ahead promise powerful mobile devices and networks, with which people can send and receive pictures, files and documents, and complete many of the other activities carried out at the desk today. In 2008, we expect there will be 2 billion people using mobile devices as part of their daily lives. Looking even further ahead towards more universal access, the aim is to bring access to communications to half of the world’s population by 2015. Accelerating Mobile Communications Growth Mobile communications has become the driving force in connecting people and in the process is making real the dream of “Global Village”. In countries like India, the first call a rural villager makes might well be on a mobile phone instead of a fixed-line telephone. Currently, less than five per cent of India’s over one billion population uses mobile phones, but the take-up rate for these mobile devices is quickly outstripping the demand for fixed lines. Just a few years ago, fixed lines were the way to build telecom services. Today, mobile systems have become the obvious choice for increasing social benefits coming from telecommunication services. Voice and simple messaging services have become a key element in increasing the welfare of both society and the individual, in countries where the lack of telecommunications facilities is evident in the rural areas. The availability of such services is a significant contributor to the development of local and national economies. Mobile service can affect health care, education, and social contacts. It can also support the government in its effort to serve the nation in the best possible manner. The global subscriber base will continue to increase – driven not only by new services but also by reducing the total cost of the service offering, enabling the next billion subscribers to enter the mobile era. Traditionally, ARPU (Average Revenue per User) has served as one of the key indices for evaluating mobile operator market performance. The landscape is now changing. New subscribers in developing countries, such as India, China, Indonesia and Vietnam, are likely to bring less ARPU than existing ones. The ARPU in Europe varies between EUR15 and EUR25 per month. In most emerging, low penetration countries, it is between EUR10 to EUR15 per month. In some markets, the industry average is even under EUR10 per subscriber per month. However, when expanding to entry-level segments, the maximum affordable monthly mobile spending is likely to be less than EUR5. This poses a challenge to mobile operators’ profitability. However, the very high number of such potential subscribers can compensate for the limited revenue potential of these new subscribers. Lowering the total cost of ownership for consumers in the entry-level segment will create growth opportunities in low mobile penetration markets. By offering affordable products with optimised features and applications for entry-level consumers, operators can profitably target new entry-level subscriber segments. Once mobile services become sufficiently affordable, the current mobile subscriber penetration has the potential to grow tremendously. From Voice to Visual When text messaging was first introduced, mobile phone users discovered a new way to communicate quickly and efficiently without speaking. With this technology, new behaviour – a mobile subculture – has emerged. Today, more than one billion text messages are sent around the world each day. As a result of this phenomenon, text messaging became an unexpected success story of GSM. SMS was eventually followed by picture messaging, an innovation that allowed “texters” to attach a digital image from their phone or from the Internet. Continuing on the evolutionary path begun by text messaging, Multimedia Messaging (MMS) took mobile communication to a new level. Since its commercial launch by operators in 2002, a rapidly increasing number of mobile users around the world have personally experienced how life can be enriched by the means of visual communications. MMS allows still images, video clips, text and audio to be sent over the air as a single entity. It has altered the way in which people can interact and communicate with each other, as they can now “snap and send” a picture and share a moment with family and friends or colleagues and clients. As image quality improves, these “moments” are increasingly being accepted as something to share and keep, electronically or as a traditional photo print. The world’s first phone with integrated camera for GSM networks was introduced at the end of 2001. In 2003, the sales of camera phones outstripped that of still digital cameras. This was an important milestone for the industry as it moves from voice to visual communications. The year 2003 also saw the dawn of a new era in rich multimedia services: video. Consumers can now view video content in several ways, including video download via browser and streaming, each with their own merits and benefits. Video downloading allows user selection, local storage and playback of video content, while video streaming offers access to large video files in real time. With the increasing number of content-to–person services, people will be able to follow their favourite sports team, watch their local news broadcast or preview movie trailers at their convenience, independent of time and place. To prevent market fragmentation and foster mass adoption of such services, open standards and uniform content are needed to increase consumer interest and stimulate the uptake of services – across all service providers. Standardisation bodies – such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), International Multimedia Telecommuni-cations Consortium (IMTC), Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), and the Mobile Printing and Imaging Consortium (MPIC) for high-quality mobile printing and seamless interoperability – are all working towards that end. There is tremendous potential for mobile imaging to grow and to become part and parcel of how we interact and communicate in our everyday lives in the near future. Bringing TV to Mobile Phones Broadcasting has brought entertainment and information to mass audiences around the world for nearly a century. The first 60 years of broadcast technology development was based on analogue technology; but, in the last ten years, digitalisation of the content has begun to re-shape the global broadcasting landscape. There is exciting potential and possibilities for broadcasting and mobility to converge and become a reality. Today, most consumers have a mobile phone and would like to have access to their favourite content and media wherever they go. Increasingly, mobile multimedia is being enjoyed on a daily basis. A natural evolution that converges the already familiar TV and mobile worlds will bring about new, compelling services to consumers. To make this scenario a reality, the industry needs to look at the networks, mobile handsets and select compelling content that will enable mobile phone TV. Most important is the standardisation of the technology called IP Datacast over DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast – Handheld), or simply IP Datacast. IP Datacast opens up new market opportunities not just for mobile communications, but also for the broadcasting and media industries. The emerging DVB-H standard adds support to small handheld terminals like mobile phones for mobile broadcast reception. Being able to catch up with televised sports or news highlights on a journey to or from work will be just one of the many potential services that such a technology will enable in the near future. Such services should be be launched sometime towards the end of the year, and become commercially available within two to three years. The mobile phone TV pilot will involve recruited end-users and make use of special handsets (see Figure below). This will be a commercial pilot; it will serve as a reference for standardisation and business creation efforts, and should yield exciting possibilities for the realisation of full mobile phone TV services in the future. Life Goes Mobile! Today, mobility is becoming a fundamental aspect of many services. People expect high-speed access to the web, entertainment, information and e-commerce services wherever they are – not just from desktop computers, home PCs or television sets. With access to services anywhere, any time, the traditional boundaries between communication, information, media and entertainment are fast disappearing, bringing about the true convergence of services. Driven by digitalisation of content and technological development, these industries are now undergoing major transformations to tap the business and market opportunities of a digitally converged world, when they previously had clearly defined boundaries with distinct and differing regulatory environments, technologies, companies and business models. “Mobility” will be offered with many services that are currently regarded as “fixed”. Mobile operators believe that mobility will become the norm for many services. Third-generation (3G) technology will add an invaluable dimension to such services that are already becoming an integral part of modern living – Internet access, video conferencing, interactive content and application sharing. This year will bring full-scale commercialisation of WCDMA 3G, a third-generation technology. According to market forecasts, there will be over 50 WCDMA 3G networks in commercial use by the end of 2004. According to the GSM Association, 85 per cent of the world’s operators have committed to WCDMA as the natural progression from voice-based GSM. Moving from voice to rich multimedia content, supported by the evolution to 3G networks, mobile phone users can look forward to an intense sensory communications experience. As life goes mobile, we can expect a future where consumers are empowered to shape the mobile world the way they want.
