The Mobile Market

Mobile Market Sectors
The mobile market is a complex place with many different sectors. These will include
the subscriber markets (such as young users and business users) as well as the vendor
markets for hardware and software within the mobile industry. Provision of content
is an area where there is increasing growth and competition.

Operators in the Telecommunications Market
In the arena of telecommunications, there are many types of operators. Some of
these could be considered fixed operators, and some as mobile. There are an increasing
number of operators that appear to offer both fixed and mobile services, through
the use of partnerships and agreements with operators of different kinds of services.
There are also very small regional service providers and very large international carriers
that may have no regional presence.

Fixed Telecom Operators
Small regional operators. There are operators of telecom services that can only
operate in a very specific region. The branding of the company may reflect
this. These companies may own and maintain the wires into domestic and
business premises and the network switching and administration hardware.
Kingston Communications is an example of such a network, offering service
around the North West region of the United Kingdom in Hull.

Incumbent telecom operators. Most countries will have what could be described
as an incumbent telecom operator. Often, these companies are ex-government
run establishments and have represented a market monopoly at some time.
More recently, these state monopolies have been broken up and the markets
have become more liberalized due to regulator intervention.
These networks still exist, however, and continue to offer valuable service
to many individuals and industries within their respective countries,
All the above are the traditional incumbent operators of these countries.
Service providers and billing-only telcos. The regulation and liberalization of
the telecom market have led to a lot of competition in the domestic markets.
The incumbent operators are forced to allow new telecom companies to use
the existing connections to offer services to customers. The public telephone
networks could now be viewed as consisting of the network provider and the
service provider.

The network provider is the company that owns and maintains the wires,
all of or part of the switching infrastructure, and is likely the incumbent
operator. They are obliged to offer the service providers a wholesale rental of
the fixed connection to subscribers’ premises.

The service provider is the company from which the individual or corporate
buys the service; the service provider will not own or maintain the connection
to the subscribers’ premises, but it might operate some switching, billing,
and customer contact systems.

All service providers are accessible to subscribers via the network providers’
connections; this is a condition laid down by the regulator and therefore some
means of connecting the subscriber to the service provider system must be in
place. This might be an indirect access, where the users will dial a prefix before
every call, or there will be a piece of equipment installed at the subscriber’s
home through which calls are made. It is this equipment that will dial the
prefix on behalf of the subscriber.

The alternative is carrier pre-selection (CPS), where the user is automatically
directed to a predetermined network by the network provider. This eliminates
the need for any customer premises equipment or prefixing codes.
Multinational carriers. There are companies that have been around almost
from the beginning of electronic telecommunications. They have grown to
be giants in the industry and offer services over a very wide range of markets,
from domestic phone services to international cable systems and Internet
traffic backbones. These networks (listed in Table 1.1) are often referred
to as Tier 1 carriers. Each of these companies will have a presence in more
than one country and some own sub-sea telecom cables or satellite systems.
Companies such as Verizon, AT&T, and Cable & Wireless have a very large
portfolio of international voice and data services.

Mobile Telecom Operators
Mobile network operators (MNOs). An operator of a mobile network is a company
or organization that has obtained a license to operate and has invested in
all the necessary equipment to provide radio coverage and telephony services
for members of the general public. Mobile network operators own, operate,
and maintain all the telecom equipment themselves or make use of contractor
services for some of this work.

In the interest of competition, there will usually be more than one operator
in a country; this would be a condition set by the government or regulator
of the region.

Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). It is increasingly common for
organizations to offer mobile phone service to the general public where the
organization does not own or operate a mobile infrastructure. These entities
are called mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). An MVNO is an organization
that has made an agreement with one of the existing “real” mobile
operators to carry services and products on their behalf. An MVNO will
brand the product, services, and handsets as if it were they themselves that
were operating a network. This may be a cost-effective way for supermarket
chains, music stores, and youth-related industries to move into the mobile
service arena. A real operator can also make use of MVNO branding to target
niche segments of the market such as youth culture, gaming, etc.
There are several definitions of an MVNO, and Table 1.3 shows some of
the areas where differences exist between normal operators, MVNOs, and
other providers of mobile service.

Currently, there are approximately 200 planned or operational MVNOs
worldwide. Countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, United Kingdom,
Finland, Belgium, and the United States have the most MVNOs per country,
whereas some are just beginning to launch active MVNO business models
(e.g., France, the Baltics, and Austria).

Presently, many companies and regulatory bodies are strongly in favor of
MVNOs. For example, in 2003, the European Commission issued a recommendation
to national telecom regulators (National Regulatory Authority
[NRA]) to examine the competitiveness of the market for wholesale access
and call origination on public mobile telephone networks. The study resulted
in new legislation from NRA in countries such as Ireland and France that
forces operators to open up their network to MVNOs. Appendix A lists some
of the MVNOs and MVNO activity from three countries.

Mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE) (Figure 1.26). An MVNE provides
infrastructure and services to enable MVNOs to offer services and have a
relationship with end-user customers but does not have a relationship with
those end-user customers.

An MVNE offers infrastructure and related services, ranging from network
element provisioning, administration, and operations to operational
support system/business support systems (OSS/BSS) support. MVNEs often
provide the “middle ground” between MVNOs that do not want to have any
control over network elements and those that want complete control.