Which is why it seems so strange that 3 Australia should not at least make an effort to conceal its neediness. This week the firm urged its own customers to sign a petition beseeching Apple to bestow upon it the distribution rights for the iPhone that it so pitifully craves. Optus, Telstra and Vodafone will all have the product on offer later this month; 3 alone is deemed unworthy.

So it posted a petition on its website, where its customers could signal their desire to Apple. What monkey thought this one up? A whole campaign dedicated to telling your customers that you don’t have the one thing that they all want, but your competitors do.? It’s either so far out of the box that it’s stone cold genius, or it’s just stupid. Which isn’t far behind desperate in the romancing no-nos department.

Still, it’s no fun being the one who’s left behind. It reminds the Informer of another story this week - nothing to do with wireless - about a Swedish eight year-old boy who had a birthday party and opted not to invite two of his classmates. The kid’s school complained to the Swedish Parliament, claiming that the uninvited pair’s rights had been violated. Eh? If that’s the case then the Informer’s rights were violated repeatedly during his childhood - a trend that’s shown no sign of slowing down as he’s matured. But then, the Informer’s not well liked.

While we’re talking about marketing exercises, France Telecom’s Orange has launched a new brand campaign with the following clumsy slogan: ‘Together we can do more’. It’s the France Telecom group’s first globally integrated campaign, which is perhaps why its central message sounds like a translation when read in English.

Sometimes the lofty ideals of marketing speak get right on the Informer’s tits. “Bringing people together is why Orange is here in the first place. Orange deals with and empowers relationships; they define who we are today and what we can become and achieve in the future,” gushed the press release. Really? The Informer always thought Orange was here in the first place to make money. Maybe he’s just tired and emotional today, and ill-disposed towards this kind of evangelism.

Once, just once, he’d like some plain speaking. “Cellco launches a new international brand campaign today with the slogan: ‘Confused and frustrated? You will be!’ Don’t understand your tariff? Nope, you’re not supposed to. Want to leave our network because your contract’s up? You can speak to a member of our team; a person of such colossally limited intelligence that they don’t even understand the concept of departure, making it impossible for you ever to escape.

“And if by some miracle you do find your way out of the Maze of the Incompetents, we’ll take FIVE DAYS to post your port authorisation code to you on the grounds that we’re not allowed to give it to you over the phone. Then, when it doesn’t arrive at your house - as we promised - we’ll begrudgingly give it to you over the phone, as you requested in the first place. We hope you feel empowered.”

It’s more likely you’ll end up feeling like Michael Douglas in Falling Down.

In other Orange news, it emerged this week that the firm’s bid to gobble up TeliaSonera has failed, with the Nordic outfit clearly gratified by the outcome.

“As the terms and conditions [of the offer] have not been significantly improved, the Board of TeliaSonera maintains its view that the proposal substantially undervalues the company,” the firm said in a statement.

There was damning criticism of the bid from one Michael Kovacoy, European telecoms analyst at Daiwa SMBC, who said the deal “lacked compelling industrial logic from the outset,” before adding that: “France Telecom has a major task ahead of itself to regain credibility - which will be neither easy to do, nor will it come quickly.”

Recently Orange has also signalled an interest in Ghana Telecom, which has been moving towards a partial privatisation. This too was not to be, however, and on Thursday this week, Vodafone announced that it had secured 70 per cent of the business, with the Ghanaian Government retaining 30 per cent.

Telecom is the third-placed mobile player and the leading fixed operator in Ghana, where subscriber growth is running at 55 per cent annually. Penetration sits at just 35 per cent. The cost to Vodafone is $900m and Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin commented: “Our extensive operating experience together with our portfolio of products and services position us well to deliver a superior mobile experience to Ghanaian customers and significantly improve financial performance. I expect that our investment will generate substantial benefits for Vodafone and for the Ghanaian economy and we are delighted that we will be working in partnership with the Government of Ghana.”

Isn’t he supposed to be leaving? It seems to always be “just one more thing” with him, doesn’t it. He’s like Columbo.

Elsewhere, Vodafone’s been cosying up to social networking outfit Myspace, with the two firms collaborating on a new interactive music service called Vodafone Music Reporter. The service will allow music content to be shared internationally, including festivals with which the firm is involved this summer. It will also feature user generated material.

Talking of international sharing, the GSM Association has responded in familiar fashion to EU telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding’s latest plan to drive down data roaming charges in Europe. The Association argues that price caps already introduced by the EC are forcing operators to pull back on network investment. “Europe’s mobile industry is cutting back spending on new networks and services as a growing regulatory burden from the European Union puts profitability under pressure,” the group said this week.

It cites figures showing that the EU mobile industry’s capital spending has slipped from 13 per cent of revenue in 2005 to 12 per cent in 2006 and 11 per cent in 2007 and argues that the boom in roaming voice calls predicted by the EU as the logical outcome of its pricing regulation has not happened. Quoting AT Kearney, the GSMA says that voice roaming call volumes have swollen by just 11 per cent in the year to July 2008, while operators’ voice roaming revenues have decreased by 26 per cent.

The suggestion is that roaming tariff regulation is spanking operator revenues so much that they will not be able to build out sufficient network capacity and coverage to support the growth of a meaningful data roaming environment.

The problem with this is that the GSMA has always argued that competition will bring pricing down by as much if not more than regulation. In which case, revenues were bound for a drop anyway and the market economy would leave operators in much the same position. And, while a one per cent per year decrease in capital investment may well be a reality, it’s by no means a given that this is a direct result of falling roaming revenues. Simply, it may not be necessary as further upgrades to 3G technologies require less substantial investment than the build out of radio networks.

Anyway, in other regulator/industry clash news this week, Swedish vendor Ericsson has had a pop at UK telecoms watchdog Ofcom, over the body’s plans for 2.6MHz spectrum auctions. As part of its technology- and service-neutral approach, Ofcom will allow successful bidders to chose whether they use the TDD or FDD profiles in the spectrum they secure. Ericsson’s director of government and industry relations, Mikael Halen, warned this week that this could lead to interference between TDD and FDD solutions, resulting in “a poorer customer experience.”

Ericsson isn’t the only firm to have raised issues with the auction. O2 and T-Mobile have taken legal action against Ofcom to delay the auction, because they say the UK regulator has not yet made it clear how much of the spectrum they currently use for 2G can be used for 3G. By not knowing this, say the two operators, they cannot properly value the spectrum in the 2.6GHz band.

Ericsson’s handset JV, Sony Ericsson, was down in the doldrums this week, with the news that it will only break even for the second quarter of 2008. The company said that its net sales and net income before taxes would continue to be negatively affected by poor sales of its mid to high end handsets, in combination with a delay of new products.

This is the second profit warning this year, after the company took a knock that sent its net income down to Eur133m, from Eur254m in the same period last year during the first quarter.

T-Mobile claimed this week to be the first among UK operators to deploy HSUPA nationwide, offering upload speeds of up to 1.4Mbps. That’s nice, but over in T-Mobile’s German homeland, Nokia’s being well and truly hauled over the coals by the town of Bochum, where the Finnish vendor closed a factory earlier this year, relieving 2,300 locals of gainful employment. You can never discount the Germans, of course, and boy-oh-boy are they getting their pound of Finnish flesh.

Nokia agreed to a Eur200m package for the 2,300 workers it axed from its device manufacturing plant. But this has been deemed insufficient by the spurned Germans, who have hewn a “Growth for Bochum” cross for Nokia to bear.

Under the deal, Nokia will embark upon a proactive, international campaign to attract investors to Bochum in order to create long term employment opportunities; it will help establish an “Entrepreneur Centre” to develop and grow new companies; a Chair will be created at the Bochum University to ensure the commercialisation of scientific research; the firm must find a suitable buyer or investor for the Nokia facilities in Bochum; and will give financial support for the surrounding region of Bochum. As part of the deal, Nokia will also contribute Eur20m plus the net proceeds from the sale of the production facility and property in Bochum.

For the love of God! These people know how to turn the screws, don’t they? How easy do you think it’s going to be for Nokia to attract investors to Bochum? As soon as these potential investors get wind of what happened to Nokia when it decided to move on you won’t see them for dust. Cue a manic, bedraggled Nokia clutching at the sleeves of the newcomers:

“Where d’you think you’re going? Don’t you see? You’re in Bochum, now. This is your home. You mustn’t ever leave. You can’t leave. NOBODY LEAVES ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

It’ll be like trying to sell a haunted house when the current inhabitants have been driven insane with fear.

“We said in January that, as a responsible company, we would work together with the employee representatives, unions, NRW Government and City of Bochum to find ways to support employees and Bochum’s future growth both during and after the difficult process of closing the factory,” said Nokia chief financial officer and executive vice president Rick Simonson, presumably after being forced to perform Michael Flatley’s Riverdance, naked but for a jester’s hat, for the amusement of the Town Fathers. “We are pleased to now announce this important milestone,” he added, through clenched teeth.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere, the Informer’s sure. You may think Nokia is getting a hard time of it but that’s nothing compared to what suspected terrorist detainees have to go through at the hands of the US intelligence services. Apparently, the Yanks have taken to blasting their prisoners with high volume recordings of David Gray’s hit single Babylon.

The Informer’s got no problem with torture. Water-boarding, fine. Pins down the fingernails, fine. Pliers, teeth, electrodes, bamboo, whatever you want - knock yourself out. But David Gray? If we turn a blind eye to this kind of thing, there’s no way of knowing what they’ll do next. God forbid they should get hold of a James Blunt album.

Happy Independence Day.

Take care

The Informer

The company has posted a petition on its web site, calling for subscribers to post messages about how much they want the iPhone. Apparently, 3 hopes it can convince Apple to let it carry the device if it drums up enough interest.

Perhaps jumping the gun a bit, interested parties can also register their interest in the iconic device.

Rival Australian carriers Vodafone, Optus and Telstra have already announced plans to launch the iPhone 3G on July 11, meaning it’s just 3 that’s left out in the cold.

“We’ve been talking the folks at Apple to bring the iPhone to 3. With the official launch of the iPhone just two weeks away, it won’t be available right away, but we’re hopeful it will happen really soon,” the petition says.

But Ovum analyst Nathan Burley questions why 3 would want to generate even more iPhone hype when the operator is not offering the device? “Perhaps the registrations and potential iPhone 3G sales can get 3 over the line with discussions at Apple. Perhaps the carrier thinks it can stop customers churning for the iPhone with the hope the device will come to 3 soon - at a potentially lower cost. Or perhaps by communicating its own iPhone frustrations 3 can make subscribers more loyal. Alternatively, for a conspiracy theory, perhaps 3 will be launching the device but needed a fresh media angle,” said Burley.

But the analyst adds, “Such developments are surely unprecedented for any other mobile, or for that matter any consumer product. And although the campaign is positioned as giving customers a voice, the exercise is embarrassing for 3 as it is an admission of its subscale and unimportance.”

The retail price of the 3G version of the iPhone will start at $199 thanks to a subsidy of several hundred dollars by AT&T, which was not allowed by Apple to subsidize the first version of the device. The reason for the new subsidy: AT&T and Apple see this as a necessity to drive mass-market adoption of the device because US mobile customers have shown repeatedly that they would prefer to pay less for a device even if that means signing up for a two-year postpay contract with a costly fee for early cancellation.

Despite the obvious preference shown by mobile phone buyers for subsidized pricing, one aspect of the subsidization practice, early-termination fees, has repeatedly come under fire in class-action lawsuits and public laments by self-described consumer-advocacy groups. The FCC has received more than 3,700 complaints about the fees during the past two years. For that reason, the commission is now pondering taking action to regulate ETFs on a federal level.

During an FCC-sponsored public meeting on June 12, consumers, public-policy wonks, mobile operators and others were allowed to speak their peace regarding the application of ETFs to customers who break service contracts. ETFs go hand in hand with US mobile operators’ subsidization of handsets as an inducement to get customers to sign long-term contracts. Customers who break those contracts are charged ETFs of about $200, more or less,, though the two largest operators, AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, now prorate their ETFs over the length of contract.

Alan Plutzik, attorney with Bransom, Plutzik, Mahler & Birkhaeuser, and counsel of record for the Wireless Consumers Alliance, testified that in a class-action lawsuit against Sprint Nextel, the numbers revealed that some 2 million Californian mobile customers have been charged ETFs, meaning by extrapolation that 40-50 million people nationwide have been charged ETFs.

Consumer advocate Pamela Gilbert, an attorney with Partner, Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, contended that ETFs “force consumers to choose between staying with a carrier that doesn’t meet their needs” or paying a penalty to end their existing contract in order to get service from another network that can meet their needs.

I agree that there were issues in the past when people signed up for mobile service only to find that it would not work in their neighborhood. I suffered that fate when I agreed to move from AT&T Wireless’ TDMA network to its GSM network, which was so full of coverage gaps and traffic issues that I hardly made a mobile phone call for a year (and I eventually switched operators because of the problems). But with major operators offering 30-day trial periods for new users, people who sign up for mobile service in the US these days should be able to get a pretty good idea of whether their mobile will work where and when they need it to before they commit to a long-term deal.

“I sincerely feel actually that we do not need early-termination fee contracts. As a country, these are not as common as the normal way of doing business. Normally you purchase a product and then you pay for service,” testified Anne Boyle, chair of the Nebraska Public Service Commission.

“What?” I said out loud when I heard Ms. Boyle’s comment (fortunately, I was watching the proceedings from my home via the Internet). Installment contracts and early-termination fee arrangements are rampant in US consumer-goods marketing. I have satellite TV service from DirecTV, and it has an early-termination fee attached to it. I think I’d have to cough up $200 if I were to cancel the service before I’ve used it for two years. Similarly, the health club contract that I signed up for a couple of years ago and, regrettably, never actually leveraged by working out, had an ETF attached to it. Even though I only worked out once in 12 months, I knew I’d be nailed with an ETF if I canceled the contract before a year was up (and I kept wishfully thinking that I’d actually make it to the gym sometime during those 365 days).

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-partisan public policy group that backs free enterprise, has come up with more examples of ETF use in other industries, including apartment rentals and automobile leases. “In all of those cases, we expect consumers to figure out for themselves what is and what is not part of the contract they’re signing. As long as any potential fees are disclosed at the time of the agreement, they’re simply part of the deal,” said CEI in a press release.

So, it’s pretty clear that ETFs are not unique to the mobile industry. But that’s not to say that some of the industry’s related practices haven’t been downright sneaky. I had been off contract with my current mobile provider for a couple of years, when, in May 2007 I decided to alter my rate plan. I had the same old phone and same old phone number, I just wanted a different airtime package. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that simply changing the service plan resulted in me suddenly being on a new two-year contract. Had the salesperson at the store explained this to me? No. Not a peep was uttered. I didn’t bother to complain because I hadn’t planned on switching networks anyway, and because I had been on the network for so long, I qualified for a substantial subsidy on a new handset. So, I subsequently went ahead and bought a new subsidized handset since I’d already unknowingly locked myself into a two-year contract anyway.

However, operators are now starting to let customers change their rate plans without causing their contract terms to be extended. So, again, that problem appears to be resolved.

Speaking at the FCC meeting, Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of Regulatory Affairs for mobile industry trade group CTIA, contended that removing ETFs from industry practice would also remove options for lower priced service and devices. In the absence of subsidies and related ETFs, “customers’ out-of-pocket costs are higher,” he said.

Similarly, CEI contends that long-term mobile contracts with cancellation fees “help more people afford a higher quality range of products.”

Yet Chris Murray, senior counsel, Consumers Union, argued that subsidies and ETFs don’t’ save consumer’s money. Instead, he said, they “rob consumers of the benefits” that an open marketplace would bring.

According to Murray, the average handset subsidy is only $14.33, but ETFs are more than 12 times that subsidy. Further, Murray termed the ETFs “junk penalties,” because operators bury expenses such as costs-of-acquisition, marketing costs and more in them, meaning the fees are not calculated based on the actual cost recovery related to a customer’s breach of contract.

On that note, I would argue that however ETFs are calculated or assessed, from a customer’s perspective, they’re usually cheaper than the full value of a service contract.

If ETFs are eliminated, then mobile operators in the US will probably reduce handset subsidization but continue to sign postpay customers to contracts. However, when a customer breaks such a contract, rather than making that person pay a $200 ETF, the operator would have to go after him or her for the value of the full remaining term of the contract. Let’s say Jane Doe decides to end her $50-per-month mobile service one year before her contract is up. That’s 12 times $50, or $600, that she owes the operator for the term of service. Hmmm…maybe a $200 ETF–or better yet, an even smaller prorated ETF–doesn’t look so bad after all.

Maybe it’s just me, but as a consumer, I’d rather pay $50 for a $400 handset and risk being charged a $200 ETF if I break my service contract than pay $400 for the same phone and then be hit with an even larger bill for the full term of my contract if I cancel it early.

The Finn bought out its partners - Ericsson, Panasonic, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Siemens - on Tuesday, bagging the 52.1 per cent of Symbian that it didn’t already own. Simultaneously it announced the formation of the Symbian Foundation - which has the backing of Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DoCoMo - which will make the OS available on an open source licensing model, along with Nokia’s S60 platform, Motorola and Sony Ericsson’s UIQ and DoCoMo’s MOAP solution.

The Foundation (which sounds a bit like a shadowy group of vigilantes) will be led by The Council of Ten (well, that’s what it would be called if they really were vigilantes). This comprises the top five handset vendors - Nokia, LG, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson - and five operators and silicon vendors; AT&T, DoCoMo, Vodafone, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.

It made sense for Nokia to buy out the rest of Symbian, with analysts CCS Insight estimating that it laid out $250m in licence fees to its fellow stakeholders last year. But the strategy is more likely driven by increasing competition from the likes of LiMo, Google’s Android and Apple. The spread of backers in the Foundation does a fair old job of uniting the industry around a common platform - earlier this year, you may recall, Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin was calling for consolidation in the mobile OS space. And it prevents Symbian becoming a Nokia nom de plume, which might cause suspicion in the market.

CCS analyst Geoff Blaber had a few questions, though. Might management by committee prove more of a barrier than a bonus? And with the depth of Nokia’s vested interest, can the Foundation be truly vendor independent? As all journalists are taught to write on the first day of hack school: Only Time Will Tell.

In immediate response, there was consolidation within the mobile Linux arena. From the beginning of July, the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum will cleave itself unto the LiMo Foundation in a bid to unify and accelerate the development of Linux-based mobile platforms and specifications. A number of LiPS members have joined LiMo in recent times, leading the two organisations to conclude that they might be wasting resource by doubling their efforts.

In other Linux news, open source handset developer Openmoko has named the first five distributors for the consumer version of its touch screen Linux device, the Neo Freerunner. For the record, these firms are: Pulster, Golden Delicious Computers, TRIsoft, Bearstech and IDA Systems. The first three are German, the fourth is French and the last Indian.

The device uses a similar form factor to the Neo 1973, a popular hit earlier this year, with a 2.8″ VGA touch screen, A-GPS, 128MB of memory, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth and USB, as well as wifi and motion sensors and a faster 500MHz processor. It will come in two versions: a 850MHz tri-band and a 900Mhz tri-band and will ship with a basic developer platform. Subsequent software can be downloaded from the Openmoko developer site.

The Symbian buy-out not only saves Nokia a wedge of cash while defending its status as king of the smartphones, it will surely strengthen the Finn’s services strategy in the long term. A strategy that was bolstered this week with the announcement that the firm will acquire German ‘context-aware social activity service’ Plazes.

The service allows users to geo-tag a location with an invite or information, and then lets selected contacts know about it in a micro-blogging social networking Web 2.0 sort of way, further eradicating the need to actually talk to your friends. The Informer imagines a dystopian future where voice functionality on phones is considered as outmoded as the fax.

It seems likely the Finnish vendor will integrate the application with its own social networking offering, Mosh, as well as the Ovi platform. “This acquisition helps Nokia to accelerate its vision of bringing people and places closer together, in line with our broader services strategy,” blurted Niklas Savander, head of Nokia Services & Software in pristine business speak gobbledegook.

Another firm accelerating its vision this week was ISP AOL. The web giant’s UK business has announced a partnership with mobile content delivery firm WIN, which will see the ISP offer its wares wirelessly.

WIN will provide content aggregation, web and mobile portal design and ongoing service development and will also integrate mobile delivery of AOL’s instant messenger service (AIM).

Not to be outdone in the business speak gobbledegook stakes Chris Locke, director of mobile at AOL Europe, said: “AOL strives to offer our users a compelling mobile experience; we want to continue to enrich the web to mobile experience and attract new mobile users through attractive, made for mobile content.”

One firm resolutely staying out of the services space is Motorola which this week unveiled its latest device. The MotoZine ZN5 is Moto’s first camera-centric phone. The firm has teamed up with Kodak and the device supports the camera specialist’s web and PC services. Users will almost certainly resort to uploading their images at home though because the terminal is only EDGE.

Sony Ericsson must be bricking it.

Ovum’s Adam Leach and Martin Garner were upbeat though, saying: “If this is the shape of Motorola’s strategy for a refresh of its entire portfolio, then it could well be the start of its recovery.”

Why no 3G? Who knows? It is certainly bucking the trend. European 3G WCDMA subscriptions passed the 100 million mark at the end of May according to the Informer’s analyst chums. Still, there ’s a long way to go, five years after the region’s first commercial WCDMA network launch penetration only sits at 11.1 per cent.

Not surprisingly, Western Europe leads the way in terms of 3G subs. Informa Telecoms & Media reckons Central and Eastern Europe will break into double figures by early 2011.

As the makers of femtocells read this news they might want to consider packing their best Gucci and Armani power suits because Italy accounts for a quarter of Europe’s WCDMA subscriptions and has one of the highest 3G penetration rates at 28.7 per cent.

Why will they want to go to Italy? Well, because 3G in building coverage is rubbish apparently, and when it’s not rubbish outdoors so many people will want to use data hungry services that the networks will get over loaded. That’s the femto sales pitch see, the Informer knows because he went to see femto vendor Airvanna in the week.

He can confirm that watching YouTube on his phone via the femtocell yielded a first rate user experience. However, why he’d want to sit at home watching YouTube on his phone is beyond comprehension. Still, according to analysts at ABI Research, an estimated 40 per cent of European users might be making a femtocell purchase within the next year, this despite the fact that the majority of consumers would look blankly at you should you utter the word.

On Monday, femto vendor ip.access introduced a 3G Home Routing technology that connects 3G phones to a home network via a femtocell. ip.access claims the technology will make way for a new wave of applications such as streaming live video from a home media server to the handset, using the phone to browse the music on the home server and select tracks to play, or displaying a slideshow of phone photos on the TV.

All well and good for the digital home, but not all commentators think it will be that easy. Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis recently released a report which predicts that beyond the ‘femto 1.0′ business models, which work on the selling point that femtos work flawlessly with existing handsets, devices will need to be revised.

Bubley argued that if the phone will be used differently, it needs to be designed differently as well. “Standard phones can work with femtocells, but they are not optimised,” he notes. “The phone needs to be ‘aware’ of the femtocell, ideally both in the radio and the application platform.”

Meanwhile, back with our feet firmly on terra firma US MVNO Virgin Mobile is going toe to toe with the incumbent operators by introducing a flat rate calling plan for prepay subscribers.

The plan is called, like, Totally Unlimited. For $79.99 per month it, like, totally lets customers talk as much as they want to nationwide numbers, and for an extra ten bucks more per month, users can add Unlimited Text & Messaging. The Informer hopes for Virgin that the offer isn’t too unlimited.

Speaking of tariff-based malarkey Super-Viv’s been at it again. Commissioner Reding, the EU telecoms minister has proposed yet more measures to drive mobile phone charges “down, down, down”, as the man in black might have said. The EC has initiated a public consultation on the future regulation of mobile voice termination rates, which Viv reckons can come down by as much as 70 per cent.

Currently these charges are managed by national regulators and thus range enormously - from Euro0.02/minute in Cyprus to Euro0.18.minute in Bulgaria. Overall, mobile termination rates are nine times higher than fixed line charges. This distorts competition from country to country, Reding said, and makes for an uneven playing field for the fixed carriers. Not to mention unreasonably high costs for the blessed consumer, in whose name all of Reding’s crusades are carried out.

The Informer was due to cover a different story at this point but it was so boring that he fell asleep with his eyes open just reading it. So, instead we have the following news about The Waves!!! Dutch researchers have identified “potentially hazardous” effects on hospital equipment exposed to RFID technology. You can read the details about it here.

The thing about it that caught the Informer’s eye is that they apparently use RFID to track patients. Eh?

Surely there are only two types of patient that require RFID tracking: the elderly ones who’ve lost their conkers and think all the doctors and nurses are their children and the ones who have turned their toes up. I suppose you could use RFID to track the remains of all those people who cark it because RFID technology buggered up their life support. That would make for a neat case study.

Anyway, by way of a wrap-up, the Informer would like to apologise wholeheartedly to the Dutch nation. In this very newsletter last week he voiced his support for the Dutch football team and they promptly flopped out of Euro 2008, beaten by the Russians. This has been a theme of the Championships for the Informer. Every team to which he has pledged allegiance has been knocked out. So apologies to Croatia, Turkey and Russia as well.

So on this coming Sunday evening, having taken note of this alarming trend, the Informer will take a seat on his sofa, with a can of Becks and a bratwurst and throw his weight well and truly behind THE GERMANS!

Auf Wiedersehen

Das Informer

The key question is which business model will work best for commercial mobile TV services, and the industry does not seem anywhere close to coalescing around an agreed model.

Some operators and vendors say that mobile TV should be subscription-based, to offer a reliable revenue stream; others say an ad-supported model is the most viable option; and still others argue that a combined pay/advertising approach is the way forward.

Figures from South Korea seem to suggest that both pay-based and ad-supported models have critical weaknesses, which would also apply in other markets in the region. A lot more experimentation and creativity from operators might be required to find the right model.

Those promoting the idea of a pay-based service say that only by charging for content can a business model work. They say operators must team up with content firms to acquire premium content - most particularly sports - that people will be willing to pay a monthly fee to view or even pay for on a per-view basis.

But this line of thinking seems flawed, given that there is a limited amount of blue-chip content for which people will be prepared to pay, most notably live sports events - such as English Premier League soccer games - or highlights of them.

The problem is, of course, that content-rights holders have become adept at exacting a premium price for key sports rights, meaning that mobile TV operators would have to recoup their heavy capital investment by charging high subscription fees.

This is a problem, since the high churn rate experienced by TU Media in South Korea seems to suggest that mobile TV subscribers are extremely price-sensitive.

TU Media subscribers pay just KRW13,000 ($12.60) a month for the service but have been leaving in droves after their initial one-year contracts finish, forcing the firm to offer significantly reduced subscription rates to keep subscribers from deserting the service.

TU Media’s experience suggests that mobile TV subscribers will be willing to pay only so much for services and that although blue-chip sports content has a crucial role to play, operators must find a way to acquire the content without paying excessive prices.

On the advertising side of the debate, many delegates at CommunicAsia argued that an ad-based strategy would work best for mobile TV platforms but that operators would have to be extremely creative in their approach.

Delegates uniformly agreed that the idea of transporting the traditional TV-advertising model to mobile was deeply flawed and that mobile TV operators would not be able to sell regular 30-second ad spots on mobile TV services, given the different nature of the platform.

One senior mobile operator executive said that he was skeptical of the ad-supported model, because mobile TV users tend to watch only 10-15 minutes at a time and it would be hard for operators to interrupt that short window with advertising without disrupting the user’s experience.

But other delegates, including those from both operators and vendors, were more hopeful that a successful advertising model could be built, though the consensus was that ads would have to be shortened to suit the mobile TV viewing experience and that they would have to be carefully targeted at specific user groups.

These are both valid points, but the elephant in the room is the fact that many mainstream advertisers are skeptical of mobile TV as an advertising model - and some might not be aware of its existence at all - meaning that mobile TV operators will need to work closely with media buyers and ad agencies to craft their message.

This might mean offering heavy price cuts in the short term to persuade advertisers to seize the unique opportunity to reach users that mobile TV advertising offers and then trying to turn these advertisers into long-term customers.

There is no magic bullet that will provide a successful business model, but there seems to be a reasonable possibility that an attractive model can be built if operators can match the largely young and technology-friendly subscribers viewing mobile TV on their handsets with advertisers desperate to reach such a market.

Intriguingly, conference delegates also discussed the possibility that broadcast-type mobile TV services might never fully take off in the region and that Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service video streaming over high-speed HSPA and future LTE networks would dominate the market.

The debate has strong proponents on both sides. Many vendors back an MBMS approach, saying that experience shows that broadcast-style services are not what users are demanding and that the more-narrowly targeted VOD-style content being offered on HSPA networks is already proving hugely popular.

The pro-MBMS argument also runs that with HSPA/LTE networks already in place and offering voice, data and video services, why go to the expense of deploying a terrestrial or satellite-based mobile TV network, especially with the expense involved in creating high-quality in-building reception?

Although this is a persuasive argument, it has shortfalls, most notably the fact that even LTE networks will still be point-to-point networks and will be unequipped to operate as point-to-multipoint services, which a full broadcast mobile TV service would require.

The broadcast-mobile-TV lobby argues strongly that the core strengths of broadcast-based networks cannot be replicated by even high-speed mobile networks, which would not be able to support the huge demand that’s sure to arise for broadcasts of live sports and important news events.

In reality, the MBMS-vs.-broadcast-mobile-TV debate is spurious, given that both technologies are going to be on the market, and it will be users who determine which is the more successful.

At this early stage, it looks likely that subscribers and operators will use high-speed, quality video streaming for VOD-based “snacking” on content and that full broadcast mobile TV will be used for some live events, for which only a broadcast-style service can supply the quality of service required.

According to a survey of 372 industry professionals, carried out by research firm IDC at the NXTcomm08 conference in Las Vegas this week, of the 51 per cent who see trouble ahead, one in four think it could happen within two years.

Inline with recent media coverage, video is seen by the industry naysayers as the biggest bandwidth hog, with 43 per cent of respondents believing that up to 30 per cent of overall internet traffic is video today, while 40 per cent expect that to increase to up to 75 per cent in five years.

The survey respondents speculated a similar fate for mobile data, with 50 per cent saying that video puts the biggest bandwidth demand on mobile networks today, while 81 per cent believe that will still be true in five years.

“The findings of this survey make it very plain that bandwidth is not infinite,” said Lee Doyle, group VP and general manager for Network Infrastructure and Security Products and Services at IDC. “Unless there is sufficient investment into new infrastructure, the increased bandwidth demands of new advanced services could well outstrip capacity.”

Controversially, of the 80 per cent who identified a way to deal with internet congestion, 32 per cent think providers address spikes in traffic by prioritising via packet inspection, while 24 per cent believe that spikes are better handled by charging more for excess bandwidth.

The survey was commissioned by telecoms kit maker Tellabs.

Already well known in the region for being the son of billionaire Li Ka-shing, head of the Hutchison Whampoa investment group, Li has become one of the highest-profile investors in the region since his Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) outfit paid $28 billion to Cable & Wireless to assume control of Hong Kong Telecom in 2000.

After a period of relative quiet, Li is back in the news, with a grand plan to consolidate the media and telecoms assets of PCCW into one firm, HKT Group Holdings, of which he would sell 45 per cent to new investors and possibly move toward an IPO in a couple of years.

PCCW is inviting proposals from investors interested in the 45 per cent stake, with local reports saying the deal has already drawn interest from international players, including several mainland companies, though private-equity players are reportedly shying away from the deal because it does not given them a controlling stake.

The proposed deal has already created a storm of publicity, given that Li’s previous attempt to sell a stake in PCCW two years ago created a furor and ended in abject failure.

In 2006, Li tried to sell PCCW to private-equity firms TPG-Newbridge and Macquarie Bank, only to have the deal blocked by China Netcom, which owns 20 per cent of PCCW. Netcom nixed the deal after its mainland-government backers refused to countenance the sale of PCCW to foreign owners, and Netcom was upset that Li had invited bids for PCCW without obtaining its consent.

The bad blood has almost certainly cost Li the chance to get a slice of any media or telecoms opportunities that emerge in the mainland any time soon, though PCCW says the latest deal has received the approval of Netcom’s directors.

The misery of the TPG-Newbridge/Macquarie Bank deal’s failure was compounded by the rejection by shareholders of an alternative deal, in which Li would have sold his 23 per cent stake in PCCW to long-time family associate Francis Leung for $1.17 billion.

The new deal on the table does not involve the dilution of Li’s stake in PCCW, and he has already told local press that he has “no intention” of reducing his stake in the firm.

The thinking behind the newly proposed deal seems to be that selling the stake in HKT would “unlock the value” of the firm’s assets and generate a cash pile with which PCCW could compete for any telecoms assets that became available in the international market, most notably in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Li has already said that the global credit crunch has reduced the prices being asked for global telecoms assets, making M&A activity more feasible for the firm.

But despite Li’s optimism, it looks like PCCW might be trying to hunt big game armed with only a pistol if it tries to take on the big boys in the cutthroat international M&A market, given that most analysts say that the 45 per cent stake in HKT would raise only about $3.7 billion.

Considering that Indian operator Reliance is having to stump up about $45 billion for South African firm MTN Group, PCCW will have to shop in the cut-price stores, not the high-class boutiques, if it wants to play the M&A game.

To be fair, PCCW does bring a lot more to the M&A table than some of the pure private-equity investors, whose cold, hard cash has limited appeal to some regional telcos on the block, which crave the expertise and brand power that an alliance with Vodafone or Hutchison could bring.

PCCW has one of the best quadruple-play offerings on the planet, with 2.6 million fixed-line telephony subs, 1.23 million broadband subs, 1.07 million mobile subs and 882,000 customers signed up to its world-class IPTV service.

The firm has built a magnificent network platform and is expert at getting the most out of converging communications networks - traits that other operators around the region would be eager to get their hands on.

However, although PCCW does have a great story to tell, it does not bring to the table the kind of market scale that other telcos, such as Vodafone, Hutchison and SingTel, can. That is where PCCW’s lack of focus on developing any kind of serious regional M&A strategy in the years just after the 2000 acquisition of HKT has really come to haunt the company.

The $28 billion megainvestment in HKT, followed by the dotcom crash and 90 per cent drop in PCCW’s share price, took the financial wind out of the company and rendered it a mere spectator as regional rivals SingTel, Telekom Malaysia and Indian operator Bharti Airtel were busy getting in on the ground floor of the regional mobile market.

PCCW has created a truly impressive product in its home country, but the limited Hong Kong market can never give the firm the kind of growth it needs to be a serious player, especially since the golden doors to mainland China treasures have remained firmly closed.

As a result, PCCW is going to have to be extremely creative if it wants to be a serious M&A player, and it might have to team up with a bigger force in the market if it wants to share some of the few spoils that are left globally.

Sony Ericsson was one, offering a hair of the dog to anybody nursing a hangover from last week’s iPhone knees-up. On Tuesday the JV vendor sent its summer collection tottering down the catwalk, with the 8.1 megapixel C905 Cybershot leading the way. In tow was the F305 - a games-centric piece with Nintendo Wii-esque motion sensors on board - as well as a couple of entry-level Plain-Janes trying to dodge the flash-gun glare.

Still, the firm’s been bulking out at the mid- and low-tier levels of its portfolio in an effort to grow volume - particularly in emerging markets - and make a bid to reclaim the fourth spot that it ceded to LG earlier this year. And it will have double the motivation to oust LG, now the latter has lured Sony Ericsson’s global director of brand away with its Korean siren song and, presumably, a fattened wallet.

Andrew Walker is now marketing director for LG UK and Ireland and had this to say about the move: “LG [has] the potential to become a leading brand in this market. The exciting challenge of building a marketing team capable of realising that potential was too attractive to turn down. In this role, I will be looking at making our brand approach coherent and consistent - shedding the cliches of technology communication to focus on being accessible, aspirational, distinctive and relevant to people across the UK and Ireland.”

On reading this the Informer was moved to scratch his head. Perhaps Mr Walker had drunk deep from the well of irony, he thought. For how can you shed cliches and still look to focus on being “accessible, aspirational, distinctive and relevant”? It’s a bit like Gordon Ramsey calling a press conference to announce that he’s taken the decision to stop f*!%ing-well swearing.

It was testament to how sleepy a week it has been that there was significant press hoo-ha over some throwaway comments made to the Financial Times by the EU telecoms commissioner, Viviane Reding. In her latest campaign, Big Viv’s going after the termination rates that operators charge one another to complete off-net calls. True to form, some operators have privately harrumphed that they will just have to hike their call charges to compensate. On being asked by the FT whether this might lead to the introduction of a called party pays element to European pricing, Reding said it was up to the operators but that she had no objections in principle.

So it was jumped upon, and headlines screamed that Europe would be getting called party pays - where consumers have to pony up a charge to receive incoming calls. If the Informer were a gambling man he’d have a nifty fifty on the sure thing that this will never happen. If mobile operators were suddenly to announce to their customers that they were going to have to pay to receive calls there’d be uproar. There’d be outrage. It would go down, as the Informer’s dear old Granddad used to say, like a cup of cold sick.

Meanwhile, in other price fixing news, ahem, carriers in the Philippines have been fined a total of $8.3m for price fixing on text messages by the nation’s anti-monopoly agency. And those guys do love to text.

One thing the Informer has noticed as he scurries through London town is that UK operators have hit on a different way of cutting costs. It’s actually been around a while but there’s a big push on at the moment for SIM-only contract tariffs. And this week, MVNO Virgin Mobile released calculations it had made suggesting that UK consumers could save a collective total of £849m by opting for SIM-only tariffs.

The Informer spoke to Virgin and Vodafone this week after he saw this research and both operators trotted out the regulation blah about ‘choice’, ‘value’ and ‘flexibility’. But surely this is all about slashing subscriber acquisition costs by cutting out handset subsidies? Virgin reckons SIM-only is the fastest growing segment of the contract market over here in the UK but neither operator was willing to disclose the differential in acquisition costs between handset and SIM-only customers.

It could be, as Ovum’s Stephen Hartley suggested, that it also serves as a useful bridge between prepaid and full contract services, as SIM-only offerings tend to have a 30-day notice period. Hartley reckons that this could help woo commitment-shy pre-payers onto a contract from where they can be bombarded with enticements.

You’ve got to wonder what the handset vendors make of this - after all, Virgin found that 60 per cent of people surveyed would sooner keep their existing handset and bag a lower monthly tariff. If that translated into a commercial truth we could be looking at serious damage to handset shipments. Anyway, you’re going to have to keep wondering, as none of the handset vendors contacted by the Informer this week were willing to offer a comment on SIM-only and how they feel about a likely slow down in the upgrade cycle.

Nonetheless, the Informer will be looking into this a little bit more so he’d like to hear from anyone who has a view on the issue. SIM-only in emerging markets makes a lot more sense, so we’ll be focusing on the popularity of the strategy in saturated, developed markets. Is it going on anywhere near you? Let us know.

While we’re on the topic of research commissioned to prove a point, let’s have a look at a couple more items - it’s been a quiet week after all. First up, this old fluff from BT: The “latest figures” according to the press release sitting in front of the Informer show that office workers in the UK now see less sunlight each day than coal miners. This terrifying reality is being used by the carrier to urge corporate managers to let their drones work remotely through the magic of BT’s wireless hotspot network. Being outside and in the sun will make people happier and therefore more productive, says the frayed, hopelessly optimistic thread running through this release.

Let’s delve into this claim a little. First off, most British coal miners are now retired because the majority of mines were shut down by the Iron Lady. For all the Informer knows, these ex-miners now sit outside, basking all day long, so the comparison is meaningless. Second, this is the UK, people; there’s bugger-all sunshine anyway. Third, and most important of all, if you suddenly put a gaggle of UK desk-jockeys in the sun, they’ll blink in surprise for a couple of seconds and then they’ll go to a pub. Beer sales - not productivity - will go up.

Right, onto Mobyko, an online back-up facility for mobile data. The firm has created the ‘Mobilator’, an online calculator that enables anyone with too much time on their hands to generate a spurious ‘value’ for everything that is stored on their phone; contacts, text messages, pictures, audio, games and the rest. This calculator works on the following formula, devised, apparently, by a professor at University College London in conjunction with Mobyko:

X = St x T + Sv x V + Sc x C + Sp x P + Sm x M + Sg x G + Vm + W

At least Mobyko didn’t try and give any real weight to this frippery, joshing that “those of us not well versed in applied mathematics” should visit the site and try the application out for themselves. The thrust of the thing is that the firm is trying to persuade users to attach a monetary value to the content on their phone in an attempt to panic them into paying to keep it safe.

In the interests of thorough research - and because he had far too much time on his hands - the Informer tried it out, and found that there was £250 worth of content on his phone, including some unsolicited smut-spam.

(A quick aside here: The Informer’s mobile contract is up and he’s jumping ship from his current provider. On calling the operator to find out how long was left to run, and to inform a staff member of his impending departure and allow them the chance to talk him round, the Informer was made an offer. “I notice that you have a content bar on your account that stops you accessing adult material,” said the customer service monkey, before offering to remove it so that the Informer could spend the last month of his contract in bacchanalian consumption of barely discernible, low-grade bongo. How’s that for customer retention?)

Back to Mobyko, though. The funny thing about the service, if our content really is that important to us, is that even if you back it up, it’s not safe. Something could go wrong at the Mobyko end, or the firm could go out of business. Presumably, in this scenario, those users who have been persuaded that this insurance scheme is necessary would get the value of their content back? If it’s that valuable, eh? Let’s have a quick look at the Ts and Cs:

“It’s important to note that using the Internet has its dangers…We can’t be held responsible for any damage, loss or corruption of any data, information or material.

We are not responsible for any loss, claim or damage including but not limited to lost profits, lost savings or revenue, or loss or corruption of data or information or any indirect, incidental or consequential damages of any kind which arise out of or are in any way connected with your use or misuse of the Site even if we have been advised of the possibility of damage. Your use of the Site includes your use of information, products or services obtained through the Site.”

Righty-ho, then. If it matters that much, everybody, back it up yourself.

Perhaps Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo worked out a similar formula for its purchase of a 30 per cent stake in Bangladeshi mobile carrier TM International. DoCoMo paid $350m for the stake, part of a renewed drive towards international expansion. Such strategies haven’t exactly reaped splendid reward for DoCoMo in the past but, after a period of introspection, the firm’s ready for another pop. In an interview in Singapore this week, according to Bloomberg, Toshinari Kunieda, DoCoMo’s SVP for Global Business, expressed an interest in the MEA region and revealed that early stage talks are going with Qatar Telecom, Emirates Telecommunications and Saudi Telecom.

Out in the Netherlands there’s been a party spirit this week; celebrations all round and fervent expressions of optimism. Not just because we might be witnessing the beginning of a return to the glorious Total Football that is characterised by the Dutch national football team but because, for sure, the WiMAX Forum threw its first ever Global Congress in Amsterdam. And there was more WiMAX news than you could shake a wobbly business model at.

It’s not often a keynote presenter, speaking at a trade show conference, draws widespread laughter from his audience. But this is exactly what happened in Amsterdam this week, when Barry West, Sprint Nextel’s CTO, spoke at the WiMAX Forum’s first ever Global Congress event.

With admirable comic timing, he called the claims made on behalf of LTE (the would-be WiMAX nemesis) as - and prepare to guffaw loudly - “PowerPoint propaganda”.

Picked yourself up off the floor yet?

OK, so maybe it’s not Comedy Store material but anyone who can get a laugh from a telecoms conference audience has the Informer’s respect.

West was, of course, preaching to a crowd of converted WiMAX sympathisers. LTE is the enemy and they want to laugh at it. But West had a point. LTE is only experimental at this stage and talk of 100Mbps to individual users, outside lab conditions, does sound fanciful.

The good news for WiMAX supporters is that West announced in Amsterdam that Xohm, the mobile WiMAX business unit of Sprint Nextel and flagship mobile WiMAX player, would start commercial service in September in Baltimore. Commercial launches in Washington DC and Chicago are scheduled during Q4 2008.

Xohm was originally slated to launch in April this year - a date presumably flagged up in more than one PowerPoint presentation - so failure to meet this new deadline would be embarrassing in the extreme for the WiMAX crowd. If another delay did happen, though, perhaps it would give any comedy-minded LTE supporters the chance to turn the tables on Barry West and think up some jokes about WiMAX.

How about this: What is the favourite song among WiMAX supporters? I don’t know, what is the favourite song among WiMAX supporters? Go West. (I thought it was WiMAX Love? - Ed.)

The other significant announcement at the Global Congress was the declaration by the WiMAX Forum that the first batch of 2.5GHz mobile products had been certified (which should ensure interoperability). A total of ten products from eight suppliers have received the thumbs up from the WiMAX Forum in this frequency band (which is also used by Xohm).

And there was some good news for WiMAX operators using the 3.5GHz frequency band, some of whom had been getting a bit antsy. Testing for 3.5GHz mobile products is scheduled for 3Q 2008, the Forum promised, with certification planned for the following quarter. The 3.5GHz licence holders have often felt aggrieved that the WiMAX Forum, in their opinion, has prioritised 2.5GHz certification over 3.5GHz certification. If the WiMAX Forum can deliver on its 3.5GHz schedule, then it should make future meetings of WiMAX Forum members a little more amiable.

Anyway, come on the Dutch!

Take care

The Informer

Addressing conference delegates in his keynote presentation Tuesday at the WiMAX Forum Global Congress in Amsterdam, he said the first commercial Xohm service will start this September in Baltimore. “Mobile WiMAX services will follow in the Washington DC and Chicago markets during Q4 2008,” he said. “We’re already looking at other markets to launch after that.”

West says that over 575 Xohm WiMAX base station sites are on air, with a number of devices going through its own testing labs. “It’s the only [communications] technology I know where the chipset evolution for devices is going faster than the infrastructure,” he said. Talking to telecoms.com, West added. “The access devices available at launch will include a Samsung AirCard, a modem from ZyXEL, a ZTE USB dongle, the Nokia Internet tablet [N810]”, and Intel inside laptops. Others will follow.”

The original Xohm target for commercial launch was April 2008. One of the reasons publicly cited by Sprint Nextel for not making the April launch was lack of backhaul capacity. That problem has now been resolved, says West. “As we’ve sorted out the logistical issues with site deployment, we’re getting much better at securing backhaul capacity through fibre-optic and microwave links,” he says.

West also reports that Xohm’s back-office systems, responsible for billing and customer management, are nearly ready. “I’m probably two months behind where I thought I would be [on the back-office] but we are testing the software now [primarily from Amdocs] and we are very pleased with it. We can now activate a device over the air under five minutes and set up a billing relationship with the customer.”

The distribution of non-subsidised WiMAX-embedded devices through independent outlets is a key part of the Xohm business model, as is billing for customers rather than devices (the prevalent business model in the cellular world). West wouldn’t reveal any details of Xohm tariff packages in Amsterdam other than to say they would be simple to understand.

As anticipated, West poked fun at the high data-rate claims made by LTE supporters and those that branded WiMAX as a niche technology. “If its niche then it’s a global niche,” said West, referring to the fact there are now over 300 WiMAX deployments around the world.

One of the main weaknesses of LTE compared with WiMAX, argues West, is the lack of a developed chipset ecosystem. WiMAX has 23 chipset vendors while LTE chipsets are dominated by one or two companies. “LTE could wither without multiple chipset vendors,” says West.

West believes LTE will not be rolled out in any significant volumes until the 2012-13 period as operators, who have already invested a lot in HSPA, hold back on 4G investment.

Scepticism was highest in France, where 86 per cent expressed their reluctance, while residents of the UK (79 per cent), Australia (78 per cent), Belgium and Italy (both at 77 per cent), and the US (71 per cent), revealed themselves to be extremely cautious towards the concept of mobile payments.

The research also revealed that 59 per cent of the sample did not trust in the security of mobile device for financial services, while only nine per cent of the total base had ever made mobile transactions of this nature. This figure was lowest in the UK, where only one per cent of respondents had used these services.

The survey of German users revealed yielded a more positive outlook. Twenty-one per cent of German respondents currently use a mobile phone or personal organiser to conduct financial transactions, representing the highest percentage of any country or region included in the survey.

Survey results suggested that users are far more willing to trust banks for secure financial transactions than they are to rely on network operators and online retailers, although there were variations region to region. Italians, for example were almost twice as likely as Malaysians (72 per cent to 38 per cent) to trust a bank to secure a mobile transaction.

“Despite unprecedented growth in the number of cell phone users and the advancement of mobile technologies, telecom providers, online retailers, and financial institutions seem unable to convince consumers worldwide that a secure platform exists for conducting online mobile transactions,” said Tim Kelleher, vice president of enterprise security at Unisys. “There is a great deal of money to be made in mobile payments, but only when consumers believe that the security of the transaction meets or exceeds the freedom of using mobile devices.”

Unisys argued that these responses indicated a need for further collaboration between the financial and telecom communities. “The fact that consumers trust banks more than others to secure mobile transactions bodes well for the financial-services industry,” Kelleher said. “But banks must still find ways to work alongside telecom providers and retailers to leverage their innovation while educating consumers on the realities of mobile banking and payment security. Collectively, they must prove that conducting a financial transaction via a mobile device is as secure as doing so on a desktop computer or in front of a bank teller at a local branch.”