Congratulations, Orange! Orange continues its successful service. The company’s Unik (UMA-based) service was awarded Best WiFi Product or Service from Wireless Broadband Innovation (WBI).

Unik was one of four finalists in its category and was selected as the winner by a panel of independent judges.

Orange has proven itself to be a big winner. Most recently, it received a Global Telecom Business Innovation Awards.

The UMA-based Unik service offers a low-cost, high-performance service at home. Orange was one of the first operators globally to bring UMA technology to its customers. Today, Orange continues to expand its offerings based on Unik, including offering multimedia services with its new 3G UMA platform. Unik has generated a 19€/month ARPU increase per household; and household traffic has increased 50 percent, while mobile calls from home have tripled.

UMA @ MWC

First, I’d like to apologize for my utter lack of blogging over the past couple of weeks (months…?). It has been a bit hectic getting ready for Mobile World Congress, as well as for some other cool things we have in the works (yes... that's a teaser).

At MWC, UMA was certainly not as hot a topic as femtocells, but it continues to be a successful service offer for the providers offering it. There are so many companies with UMA products that the community's become a 'who's who' of the mobile industry.

Orange was a major supporter of UMA and its own Unik service at MWC. Executive Vice President Yves Tyrode spoke during the "Mobile and the Converging World" session on Tuesday and reinforced important messages about Unik:

• Unik generates higher household ARPUs
• Unik subscribers churn less than average

But he also took the time to talk about why UMA is key for the company's mobile TV service. The service was launched with two new 3G UMA phones, the Sony Ericsson G705u and LG Secret KF-757.

• UMA provides a seamless experience, switching the streaming TV signal from 3G to Wi-Fi.
• UMA and Wi-Fi complement the 3G macro network with high bandwidth and a strong signal indoors.
• UMA, with it’s SIM-based authentication, satisfies DRM requirements for delivery over Wi-Fi.
• There are an increasing number of high-end multimedia phones with UMA.

In addition to the presentation, Orange hosted the 2^nd Annual UMA Innovation Awards with an elegant affair on their stand. The awards recognized innovation and excellence in UMA-enabled handsets.

A highlight of the awards program was the Innovator's Award, presented to the company which has demonstrated unique innovation in UMA over the past year. This year’s winner was T-Mobile US for its highly successful fixed-line VoIP service based on UMA.

In wandering the Orange stand, the handsets on display were primarily Unik/UMA devices, again reinforcing the company's commitment to UMA.

One announcement the UMA community was hoping for was an unveiling of the HTC Jade, a phone rumored to have UMA support. Unfortunately, no such announcement was forthcoming. But CTIA is just around the corner…

Of course the Kineto stand had its regular display of all UMA-enabled products. With 24 handsets, three terminal adaptors and five handset platforms on display, it’s clear UMA devices are abundant.

There were plenty of rumors about Telia’s re-launch of their UMA service, as well as Orange’s push into the UK, Spain and Poland. There were even rumors about new UMA-enabled devices from Nokia, perhaps even N series phones.

In retrospect, 2008 was an excellent year for UMA. And all indications show that 2009 will, once again, exceed expectations.

3G UMA "...at the heart of our convergence strategy"

Today Orange announced the expansion of its UMA-based Unik service to include support for 3G devices and network services. In addition, the company announced two new UMA-enabled 3G handsets, industry firsts, from Sony Ericsson and Samsung.

Orange continues to innovate on its UMA service. By extending Unik to include 3G, Orange is able to complement its macro 3G network with Wi-Fi indoors. Wi-Fi can offload the macro network, deliver high speed mobile data rates, and overcome 3G coverage/performance issues when the subscriber is in the home or office.

With this announcement, Orange now effectively turns all the LiveBoxes in France into unlicensed femtocells. That’s an installed base of over 4 million units.

I think the quote from Mr. Penalvar, senior executive vice president of strategy, says it best: “…UMA is at the heart of our convergence strategy.”

US Market Heats Up

If the rumors are true, things in the home zone market are about to get very interesting in the US.

Yesterday, there was a flurry of rumors that Sprint will launch their femtocell-based Airave service nationwide July 15^th. The service has been in limited commercial trial for more than 6 months in the US.

Market watchers (like me) like to compare the service offers. According to the rumors Sprint will offer the Airave femtocell to subscribers for an upfront fee of $99 and $15/month (or $30/month for families). In return consumers get unlimited nationwide calling when attached to the femtocell, and improved coverage.

T-Mobile’s Wi-Fi based offer, HotSpot @Home, lets consumers use Wi-Fi access points already in the home or get new ‘optimized’ Wi-Fi routers from T-Mobile, which are free with a two year contract. Consumers can use Wi-Fi to improve coverage for their existing mobile plan. Or for an additional $10/month ($20/mos for families), subscribers can an add unlimited nationwide calling option when attached to Wi-Fi.

Interestingly, in a video interview from the Avren femtocell conference, Lauren Town, head of marketing at Orange for Wi-Fi-based home service Unik, noted that the value proposition articulated for femtocell home zones during the conference was nearly identical to their existing service.

It’s not clear if Sprint’s rate will come down to $10/month to match the T-Mobile offer. One clear advantage is that Sprint’s femtocell is 1xRTT (or ‘2G’ in CDMA parlance), which means that it will work with the entire installed base of Sprint handsets. T-Mobile's advantage? The service works on Wi-Fi anywhere in the world (enterprise, outside US,...) rather than just one femtocell.

Like many new offers, Sprint service has faced some growing pains during the initial trial phase. Presumably these issues have been worked out.

If anything, the pressure is increasing for AT&T and Verizon. Neither company has a ‘home zone’ offer, which means neither company has the ability to create a location specific service offer like ‘unlimited flat rate calling from home’.

PS – I just noticed this. The address used to be http://airave.sprint.com. But that address now redirects to http://www.sprintenterprise.com/airave/ Hummm…

Is 3x Enough?

There is still some misunderstanding on the benefits of dual-mode handsets and home zone services. Operators are struggling to find services which offer some type of benefit, either increasing ARPU or reducing churn. I’m not sure what the market expects, but I think a service that reduces churn by 3x is not bad.

According to a slide deck used in France Telecom’s Investor Days (December, 2007):

“Homes equipped with UNIK churn 3 times less on their mobile contract than others” [slide 20, file: 5-France.pdf]

Is there any other service that reduces churn by 3x? Note this claim is from the actual operator who is realizing the benefit. It is unfiltered, unbiased, and objective information.

Maybe just keeping subscribers on your network isn’t enough...

How about a service that causes new subscribers to churn to your network? In today’s hyper-competitive market, subscriber numbers are a zero sum game, for you to win, someone needs to be losing.

T-Mobile recently announced that nearly 50% of the users taking their HotSpot @Home service are new to the operator.

Frankly that’s a staggering statistic. People are churning to T-Mobile to get a dual-mode handset service. To put it into perspective, an early article on AT&T about the iPhone said that “roughly 40% of iPhone subscribers were new AT&T customers.”

So DMH out-churns the iPhone!?!?! Crazy.

I know iPhone and HotSpot@Home are different, but both are bringing new subscribers to the operator’s network. I haven’t seen churn numbers on the iPhone, presumably because the users are still locked into their 2 year contracts, but 3x reduction on DMH services isn’t bad.

I guess the point of this post is: If you don’t have a UMA-based dual-mode handset service to sell, maybe the iPhone is the next best thing?

Orange Hits 9 with UMA-enabled Pearl

Quietly over the holiday break, Orange added the UMA-enabled RIM Pearl (8120) to its line-up of UMA-enabled handsets.

This brings Orange to 9 devices available for the Unik service. With devices from Samsung, Nokia, LG, Sagem and RIM, Orange continues to push handset manufacturers to support Wi-Fi and UMA technology.

2008 will bring a flood of new devices with an eye towards 3G-based Wi-Fi-enabled handsets with UMA.

Home (Zone 2.0) for the holidays

The home is the most competitive location for providing telecommunications services today. Fixed, cable, mobile and VoIP providers all work aggressively to provide a full range of personal communication services (voice, instant messaging, email, social networking) to consumers, with a primary goal of winning additional mind (and wallet)-share from consumers when at home. Many within the industry have termed this fierce competition as the “battle for the building.”

For mobile operators, one of the most successful weapons in the battle for the building is the deployment of Home Zone services. A Home Zone service is based on a mobile operator defining a service area around a subscriber’s home where the operator can aggressively price service.

For example, when a subscriber is within his or her Home Zone (i.e., the subscriber is being served by the cell tower nearest to home), mobile calls are charged at land-line rates. Introduced in a number of Western European countries, these first-generation Home Zone services have proved popular with consumers.

Unfortunately, as these services are based on using the macro radio access network (RAN), they also present a number of significant challenges for mobile operators.

Revenue Leakage: As a subscriber’s “Home Zone” is based on the cell tower(s) that services their home, in many situations a subscriber could be served by the same tower throughout their day, whether at home, work or in transit.

Shrinking Margins: As the Home Zone service uses the macro RAN, an operator’s cost of service delivery remains the same. As a result, operators are directly sacrificing service margins.

Poor Performance: Unfortunately, the home is often ill-served from the macro RAN, as it is plagued by poor indoor coverage, particularly with high-speed 3G technologies.

To address these cost and performance challenges, mobile operators are beginning to launch the next generation of Home Zone services, known as “Home Zone 2.0” (HZ2.0). HZ2.0 services are defined by two primary characteristics.

First, they use a low-power femtocell or Wi-Fi access point deployed within a subscriber’s home to address revenue leakage and poor performance. The low-power access points overcome wireless service coverage issues. Moreover, micro radios improve the performance of the handset in the home because the radio resource is closer to the device. The signal is stronger and as a result, data rates are typically higher. Finally, offloading voice and data traffic to the micro radio access point frees up valuable macro network spectrum for outdoor mobile service delivery.

With a relatively small coverage radius (typically within the home), low-power access points constrain the home ‘zone’ and address the revenue leakage issue of alternative approaches. This improved Home Zone resolution helps operators keep the benefits of the HZ2.0 service confined to the home, where competition is most intense.

Second, HZ2.0 services use a subscriber’s existing home broadband access connection for backhauling mobile services. Broadband penetration in developed markets ranges from 35-60% of households. For mobile operators, broadband represents an ultra-low cost transport network that improves the margins for voice and data service delivery.

Also, a wired broadband network provides fast, reliable IP transport for new revenue-generating mobile data services. When delivered through high-speed 3G femtocells or Wi-Fi connections, subscribers get a true broadband mobile data experience.

Home Zone 2.0 is not just a concept; operators have begun to deploy services today. ABI Research recently published a report projecting the number of HZ2.0 (femtocell and dual-mode handset (DMH)-based) subscribers to reach more than 250 million worldwide by 2012.

Orange’s multi-national Unik/Unique HZ2.0 service offer, based on DMH and Wi-Fi, is among the most successful worldwide. Deployed for more than a year in France Orange’s Unik service has delivered a 10% increase in ARPU, and 15% of subscribers who take the service are new to Orange mobile.

In more recent months, the US has seen the industry’s first femtocell-based HZ2.0 offer. Sprint’s Airave service is currently in limited production, available in just two cities, but offers a promising glimpse at a femtocell service offer. The femtocell is available for a one-time fee of $49.95. For an additional $15/month, subscribers receive unlimited calling when in their Home Zone. This offer compares very favorably with competitive unlimited calling packages. Vonage, for example, offers unlimited in-home calling for $25/month.

Mobile operators have begun to realize the strategic imperative of HZ2.0. The home is an extremely competitive telecom location and represents an enormous growth opportunity. However, the existing macro radio network does not meet the cost or performance requirements to win the ‘battle for the building’.

Micro radio networks (femtocells and Wi-Fi) offer advantages for mobile operators to address indoor mobile radio performance. By leveraging broadband and IP as a backhaul network technology, operators can dramatically lower the cost of delivering services.

HZ2.0 services relying on broadband access and low power access points (femtocells and Wi-Fi) are being deployed by operators today. UMA is the technology that powers HZ2.0.

unik: the webinar

Here is a unique opportunity to hear directly from Orange on their unik service. The webinar scheduled on May 31 at 9.00 GMT, 16.00 Hong Kong or an unbearable 1 AM in California (clearly geared towards Europe and Asia!).

Unik is the leading dual-mode handset (DMH) service on the market. Bruno Dachary, the marketing director for unik, will present on the success of unik to date as well as why Orange selected UMA for the service.

This is a great opportunity to hear about why subscribers select unik service and the benefits Orange has achieved in a relatively short timeframe.

Please register at: http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=46430&s=1&k=5461EA3B40866BE15AD577748DFF5CA0&partnerref=BLOG

Orange's Georges Penalver comments on unik

In comments made at 3GSM in Barcelona, Orange confirmed that there were more than 69,000 unik handsets sold in France in the last three months of 2006. According to Georges Penalver, senior executive marketing vice president with Orange Group, 15% of new customers joining Orange were doing so to get the unik service. A tremendous recognition of the value of the service.

Penalver confirmed three more handsets are joining the unik service plan and that Orange in France is forecasting 1m UMA units in 2007. Commercial launches for Spain and the UK are planned for the first half of 2007.

“Unik brings simplicity and cheaper access to basic services, like voice,” Penalver said. “It provides a better customer experience for data access, better indoor coverage, and it off-loads the mobile network.”

More interesting, according to Penalver, unik hasn’t cut into existing mobile revenues. “The positive parts are the price of the unik option and the retention effect and ARPU uplife. Customers pay less to get the same service.”

It is important to note that Orange introduced an unlimited international call tariff for unik business users in January, 2007. The “unik for professionals” tariff covers all calls made over UMA/Wi-Fi to landlines in Europe, the US and Canada for a flat fee of €15.88/month, available only in France.

Continuing, Penalver said that bundled services are an important focus for Orange. Through an internal study, Orange determined that by 2008, 63% of European households would have both broadband and mobile services, of which two thirds would take a bundled service from a single operator. That works out to 42% of European households looking for a combined mobile/broadband provider.

It’s clear that unik and UMA continue to be a key and central part of Orange’s strategy throughout Europe.