This week, we have finally awarded the medals in Mobile Europe's PR Olympics. After this, no more Olympics, we promise (apart from the Paralympics, obviously).
GOLD MEDAL: Sybase
Sybase's work in producing a top 5 "most texted" events at the Olympics was inspired – proving that when it comes to texting, nothing gets the British on their phones more than the sight of Greece's Olympians shuffling in to the sound of famous TeamGB band U2 on loop. Yes, millions of us recovered from a stunning visual and aural interpretation of our national journey from Arcadian idyll to industrial and colonial (sorry about that bit) behemoth to Tim Berners-Lee on an iPhone by texting each other the immortal line: "Are you still awake?" as the first of thousands of athletes stomped in to the Olympic stadium.
SILVER:
BT, who finally decided it was safe to come out of the woodwork and tell EuroComms, ‘Thank God we built the network that we did.’ Yes, BT seemed to have taken itself by surprise with the notion that it hadn't managed to totally arse everything up in terms of providing coverage in and around the Olympic venues, hosting the London2012 website, and providing apps and VoIP support to users and the Olympic Family. In a nice mirror of national expectations for the whole event, they did the planning, they spent shedloads, the Olympic family got free stuff, and BT got a medal (from us). Well done BT (and O2, obviously).
BRONZE:
Commprove, for its ability to see the bigger picture (pun intended) even if it wasn't joining in the general chorus or Olympics joy. It wrote:
"New figures show that the majority of viewers have found it impossible to watch this Summer’s major events via their mobile device. Only 15 per cent of people watched a live sporting event on their mobile during Britain’s summer of sport, according to research by CommProve, a leading provider of network monitoring and business solutions for mobile networks. In addition, only 23 per cent of respondents has ever watched live TV content through their smartphone or tablet outside of the home (without WiFi).
CommProve’s findings indicate that despite expectation this summer would be a breakthrough for mobile video, adoption has remained low with only 15% of respondents attempting to watch live video via their mobile.
Lars Pedersen, CEO, CommProve, comments: “Much as the Queen’s Coronation in 1952 drove widespread adoption of colour television, sporting events such as Euro 2012, Wimbledon and the Olympics were expected to make mobile TV a widespread part of everyday life this year, but that’s not what we’ve seen.”
The findings indicate that the main reason for low uptake of mobile TV is poor reception, making mobile viewing impossible. 70 per cent of respondents who tried to connect to live events whilst on the move failed as their connection was either too slow or they couldn’t access 3G.
“Mobile operators have the infrastructure to make mobile video happen, but they can’t handle the volume of traffic it creates. They need to start managing the traffic on their networks in real-time to ensure there is always space for mobile video,” adds Pedersen.
The research, commissioned by CommProve, surveyed 2,000 British mobile users between August 3rd and 17th."
Oh dear. But well done CommProve for facing up to life's hard challenges, and actually doing something to illustrate its case.
Keith Dyer
Editor
Mobile Europe