Artilium

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Network as a Service (NaaS), escape from the walled garden?

The term Software as a Service (SaaS) is widely used. Network as a Service (NaaS) is a more recent term, originally used in the IT and cloud computing context but now being increasingly applied in the mobile world. With SaaS you don’t own the software, or even have to execute the code, you simply pay as you use the software which is hosted elsewhere. The NaaS model is not entirely new for network operators since they have been providing mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) access to their network as a service on a pay per use basis.  However, NaaS is…

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Thursday, April 01, 2010

The Cloud and the Browser

Developing applications for desktop use is relatively straight forward since a developer needs only develop for Windows in order to access 90% of all computer users.  Alternatively they could produce a web application which runs on a server with the web providing a common interface.  This would give access to almost 100% of all internet connected users.

Applications for mobile are a different matter.  “There’s an app for that!” but most subscribers don’t have a mobile that runs the app!  The majority of apps run on top of the phone OS, some simple ones such as games are…

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

10 Mobile Predictions for this Decade

1. Mobile Payments
Mobile payments and money transfer must become a proper reality this decade. There is evidence of a strong demand for this. The idea of paying for your parking ticket, train journeys or a can of coke via your mobile has few detractors, the technology is capable and yet the systems are not yet joined up. The use of near-field communications (NFC) technology in mobile devices may help the security aspects in verifying a point of sale. The ability for subscribers to transfer credit between devices without excessive charges will help small scale commerce transactions. Mobile…

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Friday, January 15, 2010

Can free services provide new revenues for operators?

2009 has been a tough year for most of us, but difficult economic times do tend to help shape technology markets and creative marketing strategies emerge. In an unsure mobile market operators are resistant to large CAPEX deals where the technology bought may not fit the rapidly changing market. To offer new services MNOs can look towards OPEX deals with service or platform providers – but even so will subscribers be willing to pay for new services in full, or indeed at all! Subscribers have already been exposed to free internet services – search engines, video content, news, music, social…

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Using personal data

It is generally a requirement for mobile operators to store the call detail records (CDRs) for some period of time mainly for billing and auditing purposes. Similarly internet service providers (ISPs) are required to store the IP detail records (IPDR). In banking all financial transactions are recorded in statements or financial transaction records (FTR).  While these records all have primary purposes for being retained for a period of time, there are secondary uses for the data by applying data mining and analysis.

Traditionally, CDRs are analysed to determine data on network performance by detecting dropped and blocked calls…

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Friday, October 30, 2009

Mobile Apps, the limitations

One of the dilemmas faced by mobile apps developers is which platform or platforms to develop the application for.  E.g. should it be an iPhone app with a limited number of subscribers but a great distribution network, Symbian with a great subscriber base but requires signing and has a poorer sales channel, Blackberry with a large business user subscriber base, ... ? Even simple games apps developed for J2ME are not guaranteed to work across multiple phone devices even from the same manufacturer due to differences in the software implementations and user interfaces.

A developer of desktop applications…

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Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Predicting Relevance

The ‘holy grail’ for the delivery of services to your mobile would be to anticipate your service requirements in real-time and deliver what you want before you need to ask for it! This concept was encapsulated by the Google service launched on 1st April 2000 (i) which anticipated your search requests! Almost 10 years on we are in reality not too far from that vision.

A cliché used to illustrate the concept of delivering relevant services is the example of walking past Starbucks, your phone beeps and you have been given a voucher for a free cookie if…

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Can I disturb you?

Trying to contact someone can be a dilemma! Should I call, text or email, are they likely to answer, is it too late to call?
We have previously commented on how the presence (location and state) of a subscriber can be used for call routing, e.g. if busy in a meeting in the Belgium office automatically divert calls to the Belgian office manager. The network can therefore intelligently route calls based on live presence. However, it is also possible to intelligently learn from the network how subscribers may wish calls to be handled. To explain how this is…

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Establishing Relevance from Mobile Internet

I am sure you have observed systems which learn your preferences and favourites from your activities – e.g. menus that adapt to most commonly used options, web sites which suggest items you may wish to buy based on your browser history and on-line purchase decisions or even just the request to “press red now”. This is all about establishing relevance from user interactions in order to deliver more relevant and tailored services. There has been a lot of effort recently applied to learning about you from your web browsing history. There are a number of useful parameters that can be…

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