SCOTTSDALE, USA: Fixed mobile convergence (FMC), the transparent and seamless hand-off of active voice calls between cellular and Wi-Fi networks using a dual-mode phone, can be a powerful enabling tool for businesses, reports In-Stat.
FMC provides a viable bridge to address the gap between legacy wireline capabilities, wireless networks, cellular services, as well as evolving VoIP and unified communications capabilities. But the technologies driving FMC applications have developed more quickly than business end-user interest.
“A wide sweep of industry announcements trumpeting FMC capabilities have been made in 2009, however, our analysis shows only moderate increases in actual use, or planned use, of most applications,” says David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst.
“IT managers, service providers and integrators may have a good understanding of FMC’s benefits, but until workers actually use its capabilities, the benefits will go unrealized.”
Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
* Business FMC handset connections will jump from 5.8 million in 2009 to 31 million by 2013.
* 19 percent of businesses with Wi-Fi capability use voice over Wi-Fi.
* The ability to seamlessly roam between wireline and wireless networks carries more importance among business users than other FMC solutions, but all FMC solutions remain in a relatively nascent state.
Showing posts with label WiFi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WiFi. Show all posts
Friday, August 21, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Smartphone capability tracker: what’s hot and what’s not
UK: Tim Renowden, analyst at Ovum, comments:
GPS and WiFi are hot
Ovum’s data (collated from DeviceMine and Ovum research) identified 77 smartphone models released by key manufacturers in the sample period. Of these, 59 handsets had GPS capability and 49 had WiFi, indicating that these technologies are now key features across nearly all smartphones, not just high-end models.
Some operators still have a reluctance to admit WiFi-equipped handsets onto their networks, but Ovum believes consumers now expect WiFi to be present in smartphones.
The widespread availability of GPS (across all of the major smartphone platforms) is great news for developers wishing to deploy location-based applications and services, but so far few developers have taken advantage of this beyond basic navigation products.
Ovum’s smartphone capability tracker showed much lower penetration for TV-out capability, although this was of little surprise as it is only recently that most platforms have really possessed the multimedia abilities required to justify its inclusion.
Only the iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms produced devices with TV-out, with Samsung in particular being proactive in supporting the feature. Ovum expects TV-out to grow in popularity among media-centric smartphones, along with increasing processing power and screen resolutions.
On the processor front, most smartphones are currently based on ARM11 architecture, but Ovum expects some ARM Cortex A8-based chipsets to appear in devices within the next update, and platforms like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon or Nvidia’s Tegra to emerge later in 2009 as manufacturers seek to add greater multimedia functionality to devices.
Devices based on the ARM Cortex A9 multi-core architecture are expected in 2010.
RIAs and widget frameworks are not
Widgets are another buzzword in the industry, but the tracker shows that only around 10 percent of smartphones support Internet widget frameworks. This is another area where we expect rapid growth in adoption through 2009/10.
Ovum has previously discussed the potential for rich Internet application (RIA) frameworks as application platforms in mobile handsets, but the tracker shows how little impact RIAs have so far made on smartphones.
Adobe’s Flash and Flash Lite have achieved the best penetration, with 41 smartphone models supporting Flash. Symbian dominates this figure: 25 are Symbian-based (all except one of the Symbian handsets released support Flash).
Windows Mobile has patchy support for Flash (manufacturers even support it inconsistently across their Windows Mobile portfolios), and iPhone OS and Android currently do not support it at all.
Of the other RIA frameworks tracked (Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight), penetration is zero, indicating that usefulness of these platforms for application developers is still some way off.
App stores are cooking unevenly
One of the biggest talking points in the industry in the last 12 months has been the rise of on-device application stores. Despite the limitless hype, for the sample period very few devices were released with pre-installed app store clients. Apple’s iPhone, HTC’s Android devices and several Nokia handsets (featuring Nokia’s Download! client, not the newer Ovi Store) were the only devices with app stores pre-installed.
We expect a big change in this area in the next version of the smartphone tracker, as platform owners and manufacturers have now begun to respond in earnest to the app store buzz. On-device app stores have launched on BlackBerry and Palm’s WebOS, Nokia now has Ovi Store, Windows Mobile 6.5 will feature an app store, and a greater proportion of new handsets will feature these clients in the next version of the tracker.
GPS and WiFi are hot
Ovum’s data (collated from DeviceMine and Ovum research) identified 77 smartphone models released by key manufacturers in the sample period. Of these, 59 handsets had GPS capability and 49 had WiFi, indicating that these technologies are now key features across nearly all smartphones, not just high-end models.
Some operators still have a reluctance to admit WiFi-equipped handsets onto their networks, but Ovum believes consumers now expect WiFi to be present in smartphones.
The widespread availability of GPS (across all of the major smartphone platforms) is great news for developers wishing to deploy location-based applications and services, but so far few developers have taken advantage of this beyond basic navigation products.
Ovum’s smartphone capability tracker showed much lower penetration for TV-out capability, although this was of little surprise as it is only recently that most platforms have really possessed the multimedia abilities required to justify its inclusion.
Only the iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms produced devices with TV-out, with Samsung in particular being proactive in supporting the feature. Ovum expects TV-out to grow in popularity among media-centric smartphones, along with increasing processing power and screen resolutions.
On the processor front, most smartphones are currently based on ARM11 architecture, but Ovum expects some ARM Cortex A8-based chipsets to appear in devices within the next update, and platforms like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon or Nvidia’s Tegra to emerge later in 2009 as manufacturers seek to add greater multimedia functionality to devices.
Devices based on the ARM Cortex A9 multi-core architecture are expected in 2010.
RIAs and widget frameworks are not
Widgets are another buzzword in the industry, but the tracker shows that only around 10 percent of smartphones support Internet widget frameworks. This is another area where we expect rapid growth in adoption through 2009/10.
Ovum has previously discussed the potential for rich Internet application (RIA) frameworks as application platforms in mobile handsets, but the tracker shows how little impact RIAs have so far made on smartphones.
Adobe’s Flash and Flash Lite have achieved the best penetration, with 41 smartphone models supporting Flash. Symbian dominates this figure: 25 are Symbian-based (all except one of the Symbian handsets released support Flash).
Windows Mobile has patchy support for Flash (manufacturers even support it inconsistently across their Windows Mobile portfolios), and iPhone OS and Android currently do not support it at all.
Of the other RIA frameworks tracked (Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight), penetration is zero, indicating that usefulness of these platforms for application developers is still some way off.
App stores are cooking unevenly
One of the biggest talking points in the industry in the last 12 months has been the rise of on-device application stores. Despite the limitless hype, for the sample period very few devices were released with pre-installed app store clients. Apple’s iPhone, HTC’s Android devices and several Nokia handsets (featuring Nokia’s Download! client, not the newer Ovi Store) were the only devices with app stores pre-installed.
We expect a big change in this area in the next version of the smartphone tracker, as platform owners and manufacturers have now begun to respond in earnest to the app store buzz. On-device app stores have launched on BlackBerry and Palm’s WebOS, Nokia now has Ovi Store, Windows Mobile 6.5 will feature an app store, and a greater proportion of new handsets will feature these clients in the next version of the tracker.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
WiFi challenge impacting mobile content revenues
CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND: According to Bango, the leading mobile billing and analytics company, over 20 percent of people visiting web sites to purchase content using their mobile phones are now connecting via WiFi.
This presents a major challenge to both content providers and operators as these mobile visitors are unrecognized by the networks, making it difficult to sell and market mobile services to them and significantly impacting mobile content revenues.
Smartphones and high end mobile devices with WiFi, such as Blackberries, the Apple iPhone, Windows Mobile devices, Google Android and Nokia Series 60 (N95, etc) represent the fastest growing mobile phone segment. This means that WiFi is appearing more frequently as a primary connection method across a growing range of handsets, according to data recorded in Bango Analytics.
“The use of WiFi on mobile handsets is becoming pervasive,” said Frank Dickson, Vice President of Research with analyst firm In-Stat. ”By 2010, In-Stat anticipates that 20 percent of the total WiFi chipsets will be used in mobile phones as manufacturers, currently led by Nokia, continue to ship an increasing number of WiFi enabled handsets.”
To access mobile services, customers can now easily connect via WiFi at home, in the workplace and in a variety of public spaces, meaning they are not going through their operator network and are therefore unable to automatically access operator billing and other common network services.
Bango measures connection methods and conversion rates using its ground-breaking mobile analytics technology. Customers connecting in this way cannot be authenticated to pay using simple operator billing which results in an inconsistent payment experience that slashes conversion rates and kills marketing ROI.
In response, Bango is working closely with mobile operators and content providers to develop a unique mobile billing technology that allows customers connected over WiFi, and other non-operator networks, to continue to benefit from fast, consistent, operator billing.
“Operator billing delivers the highest payment conversion rates for mobile content,” says Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango. “These Bango statistics are both a warning and an opportunity for mobile businesses to ensure their mobile billing solution can secure the same high conversion rates from the growing number of WiFi connected customers.”
This presents a major challenge to both content providers and operators as these mobile visitors are unrecognized by the networks, making it difficult to sell and market mobile services to them and significantly impacting mobile content revenues.
Smartphones and high end mobile devices with WiFi, such as Blackberries, the Apple iPhone, Windows Mobile devices, Google Android and Nokia Series 60 (N95, etc) represent the fastest growing mobile phone segment. This means that WiFi is appearing more frequently as a primary connection method across a growing range of handsets, according to data recorded in Bango Analytics.
“The use of WiFi on mobile handsets is becoming pervasive,” said Frank Dickson, Vice President of Research with analyst firm In-Stat. ”By 2010, In-Stat anticipates that 20 percent of the total WiFi chipsets will be used in mobile phones as manufacturers, currently led by Nokia, continue to ship an increasing number of WiFi enabled handsets.”
To access mobile services, customers can now easily connect via WiFi at home, in the workplace and in a variety of public spaces, meaning they are not going through their operator network and are therefore unable to automatically access operator billing and other common network services.
Bango measures connection methods and conversion rates using its ground-breaking mobile analytics technology. Customers connecting in this way cannot be authenticated to pay using simple operator billing which results in an inconsistent payment experience that slashes conversion rates and kills marketing ROI.
In response, Bango is working closely with mobile operators and content providers to develop a unique mobile billing technology that allows customers connected over WiFi, and other non-operator networks, to continue to benefit from fast, consistent, operator billing.
“Operator billing delivers the highest payment conversion rates for mobile content,” says Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango. “These Bango statistics are both a warning and an opportunity for mobile businesses to ensure their mobile billing solution can secure the same high conversion rates from the growing number of WiFi connected customers.”
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