BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR TELECOMS PROFESSIONALS DEC 2011–JAN 2012 LEADER WAR IS OVER


As the mobile OS battle appears to be coming to an end, a new struggle is just beginning for ISPs and rights holders


Mary Lennighan Editor


Total Telecom


1971. I find myself asking much the same question as the end of 2011 approaches much more rapidly than I had anticipated. We’ll be looking back at what the key players in the telecoms industry have done in the past 12 months - as well as looking ahead to 2012 - in a special publica- tion due out later this month. Keep an eye on your inbox for that one. In the meantime, we round off


“S


the last issue of Total Telecom+ of the year with a look at the smartphone space and specifically the duopoly emerging on the operating system side as Apple’s iOS and Google’s


Operators are keen to foster more OS competition


Android grow in popularity. According to analysts and smart-


phone makers speaking at iDate’s DigiWorld Summit in Montpellier last month, the war is over: iOS and Android dominate the mobile plat- form market, in the developed world at least, and we need to look elsewhere for differentiation. Naturally not everyone agrees


though. The operator community is particularly concerned about the pair’s market dominance and is keen to foster more competition.


o this is Christmas, and what have you done?” John Lennon asked in


However, as Vodafone’s European head Michel Combes points out, there is only so far operators can go in influencing consumers. Elsewhere in the industry, battles


are just beginning. As our story on p.11 explains,


Internet service


providers of all types are finding themselves in the middle of legal wrangling as national authorities look to crack down on copyright infringement and are compelling the network providers to aid them. There’s potentially a financial burden for the ISPs too, which would hit smaller players much harder than their larger rivals. First though we look at a nascent


technology that could well make its mark in the industry next year: augmented reality. As it stands, mobile operators are


still struggling to work out where they will sit in the value chain and how they can capture a slice of a market predicted to be worth more than US$3 billion by 2016. But some are now making early moves to exploit the potential of AR, such as Spain’s Telefonica, which is already licensing


proprietary AR-related


technology to third parties. Which just leaves all of us at Total


Telecom to wish all of you a very happy new year. We’ll be back in 2012 with more analysis on the key telecoms trends. "Look to the future now, it's only just begun," as another well-worn seasonal song points out. n


CONTENTS NEWS IN BRIEF 3 Timeline


A round-up of some of the major stories reported in our daily news service www.totaltele.com


NETWORK STRATEGIES 7 Augmented reality


There are various ways for mobile operators to get involved in the AR market and some are starting to take the plunge, as analysts predict rapid growth over the next few years.


BUSINESS AND FINANCE 11 Safe harbour law


Internet service providers are in the firing line as courts and regulatory bodies look to address illegal file-sharing.


DEVICE STRATEGIES 15 OS duopoly


Mobile operators call for increased competition in the operating system space, as Apple and Google’s dominance grows. But some say the war is already over.


STATISTICS 16 Prime numbers


Broadband pricing, mobile network optimisation, social networking and Latin American mobile markets.


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