3 UK deploys mobile broadband advertising

Another source of mobile broadband revenue has reared its head today, with 3 UK's agreement to host advertising on its mobile broadband dashboard, i.e. the sign-in and status screen.

Yell has been signed up as the first advertiser. 3 UK advertised for partners in July. It has been successfully run in Austria with advertisers such as Honda, Suzuki and VW (yes, curiously automotive-oriented isn't it).

I'm a 3 subscriber and frequent, often frustrated, user. So I'll keep you posted on what it looks like and what the impact, if any, is on the service.

Oh, and before you ask, "Received Top" of 173.6kbps (on the graphic, left) after 15 mins is actually pretty good for where I live...in Central London.

Mobile money is THE growth area in emerging markets and Nokia wants a slice

Nokia has announced that it's getting into mobile money with its new, imaginatively named, "Nokia Money" initiative in conjunction with mpayment specialists Obopay. The new mobile wallet application, aimed squarely at the unbanked in emerging markets, will allow users to make payments, transfer money, pay bills and top up their prepay. They're also building a network of agents to allow users to deposit and withdraw cash.

In emerging markets mobile money is THE growth area. Mobile offers the only viable option for many financial transactions due to the lack of banking infrastructure. The average country in Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, has less than one bank per 100,000 people, compared to about 1 per 3,500 people in the United States. Almost half of subscribers to one Kenyan mobile operator are registered for their m-payment service and they reported over USD200 million of funds transferred in March 2009 alone. Almost 8% of that company's ARPU is accounted for by m-payments and that figure is rising. In that context, it is hardly surprising that Nokia is looking at getting a piece of the action as they extend beyond devices and into services.

What's generally lacking in mobile payment systems is interoperability. Let's hope Nokia helps rather than hinders that. Let's not forget the importance that interop had in driving SMS. The same will be true of m-money, although being a bit less P2P it's not as critical.

For more on this area, see Analysys Mason's forthcoming report Sub-Saharan Africa telecoms market: regional overview 2009.

T-Mobile launches LTE test network

T-Mobile has announced the launch of live multi-user field trials for its first next-generation mobile network (NGMN) deployment. The 60-cell LTE network, supplied by Huawei, will be deployed in Innsbruck, Austria. The network will be capable of 50MBit/s uplink and downlink.

Short-term hire is the next MBB niche

Australia has recently been setting the standard for marketing innovation in mobile broadband and it's always worth keeping an eye on what they're doing down under. A recent development has been the launch of short-term dongle rental aimed at businesses.

The new Laptop Connect service from Telstra charges up to AUD10.95/day for 143MB (evidently based on 4GB/28 days). Charges fall depending on the duration of the rental: sub-AUD10 for anything over 5 days. Targeted segments include home-movers, business users attending events and holidaymakers.

As MBB penetration increases, subscriber growth will increasingly depend on finding niches. This looks like an attractive and high margin one, albeit a bit troublesome to manage. A lot will depend on distribution channels and ease of sign-up.

So, while their cricketers were being turned over at the Oval in the final Ashes test, they do at least have innovative MBB pricing as some compensation.

How analysts do their forecasts...

Saw this on Technobabble 2.0 and it rang a bell

Nokia launches first laptop

Nokia has announced its first foray into the laptop space with the "Nokia Booklet 3G", a Windows-based subnotebook weighing in at 1.25KG with 10" screen. It features 3G/HSPA, integrated GPS and, of course, a full Ovi suite pre-installed. No pricing details yet. We'll need to wait for the Nokia World event next month for that.

The interesting thing for me is that they've chosen to go with Windows, rather than launch a Symbian-based subnotebook. In a recent Perspective I wrote for Analysys Mason (Mobile OS developers will compete fiercely with Microsoft for presence on notebooks) I speculated about handset vendors extending their OSes onto notebooks. It seems that Nokia is not quite ready to make that leap.

This also follows hot on the heels of a Nokia agreement with Microsoft to support the Office suite of applications on Symbian phones as well as speculation (mostly from FT Deutschland) that they will junk Symbian altogether and use Maemo. Although I'm sceptical about the latter, all of this does betray a more pluralistic approach to OS.

Mobilkom Austria looking towards joined up broadband

Telekom Austria has announced its results for Q2 2009. Its (i.e. Mobilkom's) mobile broadband subscriber base increased 43% y-o-y to 464,000 connections. Net adds during the quarter was 23,850. So growth is slowing somewhat. Of the 140,000 subs added in the last 12 months, only 17% came in Q2. Mind you, we can expect Q2 to be relatively slow anyway. Data now accounts for 35% of traffic-related revenues, up from 31% in Q2 2008.

Interesting quote from CEO Hannes Ametsreiter in the earnings call "I believe it's also important to have a look at not only mobile broadband and fixed broadband, but we are looking at total growth in future market broadband, there we can clearly see that we could increase our market share in that market." (Transcript at www.SeekingAlpha.com).

Telekom Austria has been keen to offer fixed-mobile broadband bundles, and indeed to also throw fixed and mobile voice into the mix too, under the "aon" brand. This is clearly a way to differentiate it from the keenly price MBB offers in Austria. As an example, the aonBreitband-Duo MBB/DSL plan costs €30/month including a free laptop. It's only a short step from that to the joined-up broadband that will become the de facto standard over the next couple of years.