Livewire

This is the future of mobile devices.  Just that the consumer has some new twists on old questions;

• What is the screen size?;
• What is the form factor - width, weight, height, depth?;
• How long does the battery last?;
• What's the storage capacity?; and
• What's the processor speed?

Mobile devices are becoming thin, standardised resource containers.  There will be some innovation and brand differentiation through design - look no further than the Apple iPhone - and consumerisation will continue apace.   But for all Apple's reemergence in the personal computer space, it's software and applications which drive the user experience.  Apple and Intel have stopped slugging it out and now Microsoft is the target of advertising about the "lame" PC.  Both companies know it is the applications which attract customers, no matter how many shades of lime your PC box comes in.

For a long time carriers have not bothered too much about this trend.  Phones were cool gadgets to get people on access and usage plans and carriers were able to build their walled gardens as the only wireless access game in town.  However, with the increasing penetration of Wi-Fi, Web 2.0 and improved browser capabilities, the rules of the game have changed.

Web 2.0 and heightened browser capabilities expose carriers to the threat of becoming commodity wireless pipes.  And with number portability and ease of churn, customers will seek access on the lowest price, which may even be over local Wi-Fi.  Imagine making voice calls using a web-based soft-client over Wi-Fi using an iTouch with a microphone plugged in!

Web 2.0 is particularly challenging, as it enables all services - voice, video, data - to be delivered over any Internet connection.  As long as a connection can be made over HTTP (and therefore IP) between a client device  and an application server anywhere the possibilities are limitless.

This creates an imperative for the Telco community to regain control.  If you can manage in the network the user experience than you regain the upper hand in determining the customer experience.  An example of this is the carrier's threat to de-prioritise Google traffic.   Would YouTube be the most popular video sharing site on the web if it was also the slowest? (For an interesting sidebar discussion on this topic, check out this blog on Net Neutrality)

The core concept of the IMS network - separation of Transport, Access and Service - into separate layers makes sense to address this challenge.  Transport already is a commodity and has been for some time.  Access is still a Telco strength but is increasingly an area of collaboration rather than competition, with operators offering wireline and wireless access anywhere through network partnerships to offset the cost of building and maintaining multiple, full-coverage networks.

The Service is what the customer experiences, be it voice, data, video or a combination.  Controlling the customer experience means access to the customer wallet.  By separating this out from the Access and Transport, operators are able to serve up compelling customer experiences anywhere, anytime and on any device.

In a previous blog, I made an effort to put forward a framework for understanding customer value in a converged world.  The key elements of this framework were;

• Presence - the combination of the current user identity/role, their location, the time and their level of mobility;
• Experience - defines the consumer experience in leveraging communications including the service(s), application(s), device(s) and quality of service provided; and
• Content - the value contributed from a consumer's capacity to find, generate and consume relevant content.

By controlling the delivery of the Experience, operators are also uniquely positioned to understand and tailor the experience based on Presence.    Operators have a jump start on the competition with regards to identity management (see Lightreading Report here) and obviously have access to location and time information through their access networks - be it fixed line positioning or mobile cell tower location.  The combination of Experience and Presence control/ownership provides a strong bargaining position in negotiating with content providers.

However, all of this is at risk from Web 2.0 and innovative application providers unless Telco operators can move quickly to define the rules of the next-generation communication game.  Carriers must invest in new network architectures  to ensure their ownership of the burgeoning wireless and mobile content markets is retained.