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The consolidation of the mobile instant messaging market continues with the acquisition by Synchronica of Neustar’s Next Generation Messaging (NGM) business. With Synchronica also having bought Colibria last year, it really does now have most of the operator customers out there that have launched OMA IMPS-based (basically, standards-based presence servers) mobile IM products – and the technology that supports those services.
Back when the GSMA was proposing its Personal Instant Messaing initiative, the idea was that operators would be able to use standards-based technology to provide interoperability between customers using operator-supported IM services. In other words, instead of a user signing in to a MSN or Skype or Google chat account, he would instead use an @Vodafone account, or similar. The advantage of this to the user would be that they would be able to chat not just with users of the same community, but to other operator-provided IM users as well. In short, it would do to IM what interoperable SMS did to SMS.
Yet this never really happened, as users preferred to stay with the IM providers they were with, or use chat services from services like Fring, or from Facebook or similar. There was also little value for operators in providing IP-based IM services, when the SMS cash cow was still gurgling away on the milking parlour, even if on much reduced yields.
PIM’s successor, the Rich Communications Suite (RCS) initiative, took on the presence-based driver of PIM and the IM part, of course, and added to them things like the connected address book, and file sharing, to build a vision of interoperable SIP/IMS based services. That too has seen little take up to date – with very few RCS clients, for example, on any devices.
This is not to say that no operators have gone down the “operator-led” mobile IM path. The Synchronica deal with Neustar saw a clutch of operator customers move over to Synchronica as part of the acquisition, and Colibria too had a handful of major operator customers.
But Synchronica’s success to date as been in emerging markets, where a) there has been less fixed take up of rival messaging services and b) operators are used to living and working in much lower ARPU environments.
It’s worth noting that NeuStar, with its clearing house and interconnection model, took on the IM market through its acquisition of FolloWap for $139 million in late 2006. At that time it saw a model whereby presence servers and messaging gateways were installed within operators, with interconnection and interoperability handled through its interconnect platform. Despite some tactical successes, as a strategy it seems to have failed, with the unit now being offloaded for just $251,000 (plus liabilities).
Happier news from the femto forum, which has completed its second plug fest, this time with 13 companies testing the effectiveness of the Broadband Forum’s femtocell management standard in supporting interoperability between femtocell access points and network equipment from different vendors. The companies involved were Ablaze Wireless, Acme Packet, Alcatel-Lucent Telecom, Alpha Networks, Argela, Askey Computer Corporation, Huawei, Institute for Information Industry, NEC Corporation, Node-H, Nokia Siemens Networks, PicoChip and Ubiquisys.
The relevance of this meeting is that is shows the desire to build out an ecosystem that will enable operators to have confidence that femtocell technology is open and interoperable. The femtocell standard being tested allows mobile operators to simplify deployment and enable automated remote provisioning and configuration, radio environment monitoring, diagnostics-checking and software updates. These will be crucial if femtocells are to form the low cost network option, in opex as well as capex, that they will need to be to achieve true volume.
If you’d like to find out more about recent femtocell developments we now have two recent webinars available to view. See the links on this newsletter to access them.
Keith Dyer
Editor
Mobile Europe
Links:
http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/news-anaylsis/8448-neustar-exits-mobile-im-business-with-sale-to-synchronica
http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/press-wire/8446-femto-forum-focuses-on-management-with-second-plugfest
http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/press-wire/8445-ofcom-unveils-spectrum-plans
Six Essential Steps: LTE Small Cell Development & Validation
(https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/122008297)
Live debate: Beyond the niche – why small cells will be network critical in 2011
(https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/484591545)