|
InCode, a global business and technology consulting firm, has released its Top 10 Global Wireless Predictions for 2006.
The predictions identify key market changes for the coming year, including the insight that fierce competition will leave "only five handset manufacturers standing," due to new business models enabled by converging access technologies and new mobile entertainment brands.
Some highlights of the 2006 predictions are that a digital music innovator will launch a Mobile Virtual Network Operator focused on mobile entertainment services; that consumers will "snack" on mobile TV, which will not be a killer application; and that a new business model for voice services will emerge, based on mobile Voice-over-Internet Protocol.
"Ninety percent of the inCode 2005 predictions have come true, and the 2004 predictions were 80 percent accurate," company officials say. VoIP, according to inCode's predictions, will get married. The "Converged Virtual Network Operator" category will emerge, looking to the consumer "like a marriage of Vonage and Virgin Mobile, combining characteristics of a Bring Your Own Broadband VoIP provider and an MVNO," inCode says.
These new operators will attack the convergence space by offering VoIP, mobile voice and mobile data, combining services in new ways that will surprise the industry. In the future, these operators may also add broadband in the form of WiFi hotspots and WiMAX when it becomes widely available.
The technology enabling this new operating model is IP Multimedia Subsystem, the architecture for 3G core networks that allows delivery of IP services in a consistent way to the user device, regardless of the access technology. First offers may be as simple as "number convergence" with a single number for multiple devices, inCode suggests:
"The first CVNOs will likely focus on combining VoIP over WiFi with CDMA or GSM cellular. In the future, they will look to leverage strong existing customer relationships to gradually grow the customer spend and capture the 'friends and family' network effect."
In 2006, the prediction is, "at least two announced Converged Virtual Network Enablers, which are facilities-based wholesale enablers, will launch this phenomenon."
David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles by David Sims, please visit:
http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/columnists/
|
TMCnet LOGIN
Webinars
