- – - – - 

We are in an unprecedented era for discounting and promotions. The marketing tactics, designed to lift sales of a variety of consumer electronics products, may actually erode margins if hastily designed. The lagging economy, consumer demand for deals and the rapidly accelerating promotional technology of online and mobile has led to a perfect storm that mobile retailers and manufacturers must be aware of. Enticing and dynamic promotions are now necessary to get customers in the door, but be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water.

How we got here:

1)      The Groupon phenomena has taken deal finding to a new audience – 18-35 year old, affluent households. Groupon and its competitors have so vastly changed the consumer psyche with respect to fair market value the trend is shifting – now consumers think paying full price means they are getting ripped off.

2)      Extreme couponing has become popular enough to support a prime time television show. This represents another little nudge to the consumer psyche; paying full price means you are being taken advantage of.

3)      The economy still struggles. The Great Recession has encompassed a wide swath of middle income consumers that need to price shop now even if they never had to in the past.

4)      Technology has not slowed down. This, paired with the mounting consumer demand for deals, means that promotions can spread faster than ever before thanks to couponing websites, mobile shopping applications, daily deal blogs, social network promotions and more.

Mobile retailers and manufacturers have delivered on consumers’ voracious deal-seeking demands that have grown out of the struggling economic situation. But as more shoppers take advantage of deals, margins of the sponsoring businesses are getting taxed. Moving forward, smart mobile marketers need to begin asking for more from their customers in return for these deep discounts. The good news is that a well designed promotion will not only work for the retailer or manufacturer, but offer appealing benefits to the consumer as well.

In 2012 mobile marketers must use promotions as the catalysts for long-term engagement and ROI, versus just temporary sales lift tactics. Deep discounts will migrate from instant deals to redemption-based models like rebates or cash-back promotions, and will require consumers to engage with a brand for a period of time.

The consumer redemption requirements to get a deep discount could be as simple as a Facebook “Like” or an email opt-in, or more detailed like participating in shopping preference surveys. This will give marketers the opportunity to collect critical consumer data, and provide new touch points for ongoing interaction. Plus, consumers hungry for deals seem willing to go that extra step: according to 2011 Parago research, more than 70% of consumers are willing to opt-in for additional emails when redeeming a reward.

Over the last few years this has worked well on Twitter and Facebook, where brands require customers to engage online to receive exclusive discounts. Research from Empathica shows that six in ten consumers follow at least one brand via a social network and forty percent do so to search for deals.

Next year this linking of promotions to information gathering will need to expand more concertedly beyond social networks and become a strategy for mobile retailers and manufacturers to reach all deal finders, on and offline.

Theresa Wabler is director of marketing at Parago, a provider of rewards-based incentive solutions. She can be reached at Theresa.Wabler@parago.com.

I came across MobDB the other day thanks to one of those beta lists that I completely forget the name of. When I remember, I’ll update the post. Anyway this one really caught my eye as I think I could seriously use it for a number of applications.

Let’s take a step back. What’s the one problem every single interactive mobile application has? At some point you’re going to want it to hook into a back-end database, right? To store everything. And that’s where it gets annoying. You work really hard on the app, then you have to build a flipping API for it. And unless you’re doing something with a pre-existing database, the chances are you need to construct a whole MySQL (or similar) back-end infrastructure to link to that API.

It’s a bit of an arse.

Doable, yes, but a bit of an arse. It’s just yet one more thing you have to remember. And often it means almost double the work for an application developer — because he’s got to figure out both the app front-end then develop this back-end bit.

That’s where mobDB comes in. They’ve done it all for you. They’re using Amazon in the background and they’ve simply designed a lovely front-end API for your app to talk to the database. You do this via HTTP-POST. It couldn’t be any simpler. Within that HTTP-POST, you include some uber-easy XML that executes your query and you get the results back in XML.

For instance, if this table existed on mobDB…

Then all you’d need to do to access it is send this XML:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
 <request>  
  <key>CIWWP3-1Ss-Vy7mOvi36kGTtDU-G0210JFRsWoBSoScBJpadeatrtTYy5Qqa</key> 
    <sql> 
     </query>SELECT * FROM employees</query> 
    </sql>   
 </request>

Easy.

Making a query is simple too:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
 <request>  
  <key>CIWWP3-1Ss-Vy7mOvi36kGTtDU-G0210JFRsWoBSoScBJpadeatrtTYy5Qqa</key> 
   <sql> 
      <query >SELECT name, address, photo FROM employees</query> 
   </sql>   
 </request>

The service is in beta right now and therefore it’s totally free to use.

Why not check it out at mobDB.net?

Update: The website I mentioned at the start but couldn’t remember the name of? http://www.betabait.com/

If you’ve been tracking the developments of the M-Commerce arena, you’ll most probably have had an eye on Square, the mobile payments startup.

They’ve been doing rather well of late as this post from TechCrunch points out. It’s a useful primer that’ll bring you up to date.

I’m interested to understand what the team at Square have on their minds regarding Europe (and specifically, the UK) — since we’re more or less all using Chip-n-PIN solutions apart from very few exceptions, Square’s going to need to change quite a bit to expand internationally.

Over to TechCrunch…

For disruptive mobile payments startup Square, 2011 was a year of massive growth on many levels. The startup ended the year with over 1 million merchants using the mobile payments platform to accept credit cards there are only 8 million merchants who accept credit cards in the US.

via Square Expands Retail Partnerships; Now Sold At OfficeMax And UPS Store Locations | TechCrunch.

I let it ring out.

I didn’t care.

And for the first time ever, I’ve finally arrived into the mindset of: You’re completely irrelevant.

Now then, I still use the landline for calling my parents — although, I say that, really… no. I don’t. I just think I do.

The more I think about it I hardly every make a call on it.

And I definitely, definitely do not ever receive calls on the landline. Nobody knows the number.

Well, again, let me correct myself: Nobody important to me knows the number. Despite making sure it was Ex-Directory when we activated it here in Ascot about 3 months ago, we receive the odd rubbish call from someone wanting to do a survey (where you answer yes, yes, yes and on that basis, they try and flog you something).

I’m seriously considering switching the phone’s ringer off — if that’s possible.

I used to keep the landline for conference calls and for proper phone calls but nowadays Skype (and my BT Infinity connection) is highly reliable and far better quality.

The only reason we have a landline is because there’s no choice. You need one if you want an internet connection. At least, you did when I ordered my line a little while ago. I wonder how long it will be before we can actually avoid ordering a landline at all?

What’s your policy on landlines?

Eventually as the train began to move she decided to finish her conversation thus:

“Ok the train is moving now so shall we talk later? I’ll get cut off in a moment…”

Isn’t that shocking?

Her mobile network is so pants that she is automatically working around it.

On reflection I suppose this is good news. Train journeys for me seem to be quieter now that — obviously — everyone’s network appears to be incapable of maintaining voice calls at more than 25mph.

It’s a sad reflection on the capabilities of our mobile networks that the most basic service of voice doesn’t work on many train journeys.

I’ve begun relying on text messages again because they don’t need the standard data connection to commence, open, deliver etc. They just get sent provided there’s a network operator call sign showing on your phone.

Shit. Shit and thrice shit.

Mind you the lady was talking on an iPhone 4 — *without a bumper* — so that won’t help.

70% of Canadians reportedly own mobile phones which is why the bank reckons the time is right. Here’s a bit of detail from Moneyville.ca:

Bank of Montreal customers can now make payments simply by waving their mobile phone in front of a PayPass reader, the bank announced Tuesday.

The bank, which already has 7 million PayPass credit card holders, says the same service is available by simply attaching a PayPass sticker to your mobile phone

via BMO launches cellphone ‘swipe and pay’ – Moneyville.ca.

What’s interesting about this technology is that, on the face of it, it’s “Pay by Mobile”.

In fact it’s nothing of the sort. It’s pay-by-sticker. Or ‘tag’ as they’re known in the industry. If you sign-up with Bank of Montreal, they’ll send you a physical credit card plus the option of a PayPass sticker.

This RFID-style sticker can be put on anything. Obviously, your mobile phone is a really sensible, accesible possibility. But you could theoretically put the sticker on your passport, driver’s license, wallet, whatever.

The sticker can — theoretically — be removed and re-applied without losing it’s grip. That I would like to see.

It’s a quick and simple solution though — I really do like the concept of mobile-enabling millions of folk quickly and simply without having to deal with the actual physical device infrastructure at the moment. It makes a heck of a lot of sense. I’d use it. I think you would too, right? If your credit card company sent you out a ‘tag’ or sticker? Why not!

Now then want to see what one of these tags/stickers look like? Here’s a photo of a rival deployment (Zoompass):

(Thanks to Krystal for pointing this one out!)

I spoke last year at the Senior Market Mobile 2010 event. I really enjoyed the event and found it simply fascinating to discover the almost completely unfulfilled needs of the world’s elderly citizens.

It’s actually a huge market, especially in the UK where so many ‘connected seniors’ have a decent amount of disposable income.

The solution is not to give them all an iPhone or an iPad.

When you’ve got fingers, limbs and eyes ravaged by time, you need a bit of thought from your mobile and service designers. Buttons need to be positioned correctly, screen displays need to be arranged for the right contrast and so on.

I learnt a lot last year — this year, I suspect the event is going to be even better.

It’s taking place next Tuesday (20th September) at the Royal Institute of British Architects in Portland Place, just up the road from Oxford Circus tube.

I very much like the ‘Dragons Den’ concept. At 2pm on the day, Jon Bentley will be moderating a panel of seniors who will give their views on what they’d like to see. That alone is well worth the visit.

Tickets are £349 each — but do look out for the 3-for-1 special that includes a Binatone Android tablet!

That image there highlights just how good the all new 3 MiFi (Model: E586) is when it comes to offering a usable internet connection. Indeed, this connection isn’t just usable, according to Speedtest.net, it’s actually better than 65% of the rest of the United Kingdom. Love it.

I’m using this at home in Ascot and anecdotally, the speed and responsiveness feels a lot better than your standard fixed-line broadband connection. It leaves the shared (i.e. slow) connections of BT Openzone and The Cloud in the dust — so once I’ve got my fixed line BT Infinity installed tomorrow, I’ll most definitely still be using the MiFi unit.

I’m particularly pleased with the updated model (I previously had the E585 — very good). The 586 has a nice little button on the side you can press to immediately get a reminder of the MiFi’s access code. Very handy. And it’s super, super fast.

I’ve used 700mb this morning already.

You can pick up one of these from 3 now from £71.99 — which includes 3GB of data to use right-away.

Update: As per the comments, just to be clear, the £71.99 model is the E585 — that’s about a year old now. You can pick up the new E586 that I’m talking about for £84.99 including 3GB of data.

- – - – -

First, I thought Google. Now, I think Microsoft.

I was reading recently about Skype functionality being built into the forthcoming Mango release on Windows Phone (WP) and I started thinking: who is now moving forwards fastest in this whole ecosystem race?

At the turn of the year, I was part of a research panel discussion around the near future of mobile. The NDA I signed on the evening prevents me from disclosing what treats we were party to, however, what I can share is some of the thoughts we went in with.

Each of us was asked to present our ideas around future mobile technologies. My pitch was around, funnily enough, ecosystems:

“We’re already seeing mobile operating systems appearing in car dashboards. Soon they’ll be in our fridges, on our televisions, built into our coffee tables.. and, when that happens, purchasing decisions will also be made based upon these ecosystems. If your main technology at home is Android-based and you’re coming to buy something new for your household, you’re more likely to keep within the ecosystem that you’re used to. Both from a UI perspective and also from a service interaction ideal.”

This was at the end of last year. Rewind a few years, back when I was working at a certain voice to text company, and Google was talking about launching their own voice-to-text product through Google Voice – “They’ve parked their tanks on our lawn, we must be doing something right”.

At that time I was thinking about the different pieces being put in place by the big G:

GMail, GTalk, Google Maps and now, Google Voice.

Communications + presences + location? I remember saying to a French Googler whom I knew at the time “Man! I can totally see where you guys are going! Amazing. Android will be the glue to pull it together aaaand.. when you align the stars, it’ll be perfect!” – he smiled and bowed his head, knowingly.

The communication ideal behind these nodes, if you will, for me seemed like a major background strategy that was slowing falling into place. Alas, here we are several years later and – even with the likes of [the yet to be proven] Google Plus – all of these services are still yet to fully link up properly. But these things take time.

Fast forward back today and this piece on Engadget highlighting Skype integration in Mango hits. My brain clicks into gear.

Xbox, Windows, Windows Phone, Hotmail [yeah, I said it] and now Maps – the pieces are all there. But the key part here for me is Xbox. The one thing everyone seems to be overlooking: Xbox. There are 53.6million of these machines worldwide – already sat under televisions. Of those, 66% are connected [or at least registered] online via Xbox Live. Include in that another 10million Kinects [the fastest selling peripheral of all time] and you have one hell of a home entertainment system / internet ecosystem.

The Kinect already had video calling before Skype was announced for Windows Phone. Skype is also rumoured to be bundled in the next Xbox update. I’m not saying video calling is the future, not by any stretch. But a true and proper unified communications plan for consumers is the next big step. [Facebook is nearly there, but isn't interested in home or mobile hardware].

Windows 7(.5/Mango/Tango/Rango/Bingo/Bango – delete where appropriate) also promises gaming integration, amazing applications [like the mind-blowingly awesome British Airways app we saw demo'd earlier this year] and well, I can’t help thinking that a sleeping giant has been stirred.

I used to think that Google would be the one pulling this stuff together – the faster, more agile of the huge players in the world. They still could be. They still might be.

All I’m saying is, don’t forget about Microsoft and above all, don’t ignore the Xbox. I genuinely think it’s a trump card that Microsoft is yet to play.

Whatley out.

It is with this in mind that I have spunked £120 for your reading pleasure. It wasn’t deliberate, but since I’ve spunked it, I might as well write about it, yes? And therefore extract some value from the bollocks experience.

It’s also a really, really useful example of how operators are handling the data crunch. Sometimes folk don’t believe me when I’m jumping about on stage at events or briefing investment bankers about how dumb the infrastructure (and, often, the thinking and execution) is at operator level.

Right, let’s get to it.

I’ve moved house. There’s no internet connection — obviously — we’re waiting for BT to dance about doing the jiggerypokery that they do in order to make the broadband work.

In the meantime, I had a brilliant idea: Use the MiFi.

For me, that means using my 3 MiFi unit. It’s the one I rave about all the time. Regular readers know this — I do rave about it. (“Three MiFi success yet again: I love it“)

I’ve been using it perfectly fine for, I reckon, a year. Witness, for example, the post I did a few months back explaining why Premier Inn (and Spectrum Interactive) didn’t get any business from me thanks to my 3 MiFi service.

I’ve pummelled the unit. I’m sure I’ve used hundreds of megabytes in a single day. I’m sure I’ve used upwards of a gigabyte in a single day.

I’ve not once had a problem with the SIM.

I bought the MiFi unit last year in Richmond. I think I paid £59 for it, including a tenner’s worth of data (1GB). I went through that across the first month so I bought a few more gigs… and then I decided to take the SIM from my Nokia N86 and use that in the MiFi instead. This is because I’ve unlocked the N86 — and often, I use it without the SIM. I reasoned that I might as well stick it in the MiFi and get some use out of it.

I’m sure I read somewhere that you’re not quite meant to do this. I think it was Ben Smith who pointed out that there’s a rather huge inconsistency with the Three policy. (See point 1 in his overview).

Either way, I stuck the SIM in the MiFi and it’s been working perfectly for about a year.

Over the weekend I looked like a Demi God by supplying internet to my new household via the 3 MiFi. I just stuck it into a plug in the kitchen and it provided connectivity to iPads, MacBooks and even my other Three iPhone. (This is currently supplying the internet because of my borked MiFi SIM.)

My wife was delighted.

Wee Archie — all of 15 months — was supremely impressed at the ability for the Family iPad (WiFi-only) to magically update with new apps to keep him amused now-and-again. He’s teething so anything that keeps his mind off that and enables us to get food into him is a good idea.

I was pretty impressed myself.

The speeds have been near Desktop level. It’s been interesting watching my wife simply pick up her iPad and start using the internet across the weekend, without giving a thought to the actual bearer. It worked well enough that she didn’t notice the difference. This is a testament to Three’s super data network. I find it phenomenally good.

I think we’d used a few hundred meg but the time my wife decided to download an episode of One Tree Hill. Or something like that. She did ask if it would be OK. I said, ‘sure’ — knowing it would be slow, but knowing that a) Three could handle that and b) it would only be 500 odd meg.

Alas my wife fell for the iTunes trick: The first results they present to you are always the £2.49 HD episodes, aren’t they? 1.4 gigabytes.

I only found this out when my wife checked the download to see it was almost finished.

“Geez, that’s quite a lot,” I thought.

It downloaded fine.

I was very impressed.

I made yet another, “Three is flipping brilliant!” note to myself mentally and went about opening boxes and unpacking stuff.

I didn’t give a thought to the cost.

This is Three. Them of the truly unlimited data offering! Truly! They mean it!

Just, not for me.

Not on the price plan the N86 is on.

That was my critical mistake.

I only found out the problem when, today, my wife complained that she couldn’t use the internet.

“It’s saying something about running out of credit,” she said, over the phone.

“You what?” I said, knowing the SIM is running on a monthly contract. For hours I was convinced she’d some how put one of our PAYG SIMS into the MiFi by mistake some how.

I discovered the reality this evening.

Here’s the chronology that I’ve reconstructed from the sodding text messages that arrived into the MiFi warning me that I was exceeding my usage.

We start off with a warning message on Saturday evening:

18:36:59

From 3: You’ve nearly used your internet allowance. Check your remaining allowance for free at My3

This is very sensible. Provided I’m reading the text messages. But I’m not.

Now let’s get to the money texts. Here’s the warning that I’m about to get billed:

13.08 Sunday:

From 3: You’ve reached your internet allowance. You may be charged for further internet use. Check your usage free at My3

Right that’s not at all helpful. I mean, it’s useful to know. But what’s the sodding point in texting it to me? Why not DISPLAY something? Why not make me CLICK a button to continue during my web activity?

13.13:

You have spent £ 2.61 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobil

13.13:01

You have spent £ 8.43 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobil

This does show the speed of Three’s network, both in terms of data, and in terms of billing updates. Anyway, one second later I got this…

13.13:02:

You have spent £ 17.74 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

The billing system has noticed something might not quite be right, but things carry on. 43 seconds later, they sent this:

13.13:45

From 3:You have nearly reached your credit limit. If you would like more information or want to make a payment please call 333 or

A few minutes now pass as the system lets me carry on regardless..

13:16:59

You have spent £ 23.56 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

Now for a big jump:

13:19:00

You have spent £ 41.01 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

The outstanding balance has doubled in a few minutes. This is clearly a nice chunk of One Tree Hill downloading. Things are moving so fast that even the SMS delivery servers can’t react fast enough. One second later, this message arrived — rather late:

13:19:01

You have spent £ 20.07 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

And then it’s all good for another few minutes as the billing engine carries on counting the pounds from me before declaring:

13:23:02

You have spent £ 113.36 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mob

And the final text? For some inexplicable reason, that arrived almost twenty minutes later:

13:42:01

You have spent £ 118.02 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mob

And that’s it.

Job done.

For some reason, the system decided not to bother texting me after that — despite the fact that I happily used data from it across the evening, although perhaps not much, given the fact that the final additional data bill is almost £120:

I really didn’t expect a bill from Three.

I thought they’d actually given up on this ‘fair usage policy’ stuff and actually just given everyone unlimited data. I just assumed (“makes an ass out of you and me”) that this SIM contract would carry over.

My real problem is the gratuitous way in which the company’s systems just billed me. I take full responsibility. I will most definitely pay the bill. I’m just seriously disappointed that the only mechanism they thought to employ to warn me was text messaging.

It’s OK.

It’s just not very smart, is it?

The average customer would go absolutely spare at such an occurrence.

The experience really does bring home to me how shit the operators — well, Three in this instance — are at dealing with this kind of usage.

Don’t just send me a text.

How stupid is that? Oh, by all means warn me, but what about the smart thinking? What about the up selling opportunities?

KNOWING that I’m on a price plan that has a defined limit, why didn’t you switch off my internet connection and redirect all browser requests and ask me to specifically approve the STUPID amount of money I spent?

Why didn’t you use a bit of intelligence in the system? “Ewan, it looks like you’re using a lot — and, you know what, you don’t have much headroom in your allowance, so why don’t you buy a bolt-on for this week?”

No.

Here’s the screenshot of the page my wife was talking about:

I don’t know why this wasn’t shown to me (or us) some way through 1pm on Sunday when we were already running up a bill.

I could have bought almost 5x £25 7GB options for the amount they’ve charged me.

I find this level of incompetence extremely irritated.

Yes I should have swapped to an unlimited price plan. I should. That’s my fault. Yes I should have monitored my data usage closely, again, my fault.

Whoever designed and manages the Three data billing policies failed me, utterly. You’re meant to manage the customer, right? Come on, this is donkey stuff. All customers are inherently stupid. And we want to avoid them phoning us up SCREAMING for the CEO’s email address to make a complaint, yes? So make the billing system and ESPECIALLY the bit that the customer interacts with waterproof. Stupidproof.

By not dealing with this issue — by allowing it to happen for whatever reason — Three succeeded in winding up an otherwise very happy customer.

I understand that the cause of the problem was me. I expected more from you, Three. I expected some smarts in the billing team to have identified this possibility and protect me from the shit and, most importantly, as a customer, isolate me from having to deal with exceptions like this.

How simple would it have been on Sunday afternoon?

“What’s this?” my wife would say, handing the iPad to me.

“Ah, yeah it’s ok — just tap on the 7GB option as we’ll be using a lot over the next week or so,” I’d have replied.

Gahhhh.

If you’re an Android user and you roam regularly, you have probably experienced the ‘what-the?’ moment at least once in recent memory.

That’s the moment you realise that the paltry 25mb you’ve been given for your day’s worth of roaming mobile data adds up to about 20 minutes worth of heavy using on an Android handset.

It’s a real nightmare, especially when you’re in a decent 3G/3.5G cell area. Often when abroad, I do find that the signal is patchy. I remember being lucky to get one bar of connectivity in Portugal a few years ago. One bar or stupid-slow GPRS helps limit the data roaming damage. Email is usually about the best you can handle before wanting to through the device across the piazza.

But when you’re in the centre of Paris running a 3.5+ super-fast connection with what feels like zero additional traffic on your cell? Oh no. Not good. Everything runs beautifully on your super-fast gorgeous Samsung Galaxy SII or your Nexus S.

Android can really deliver a glorious connected experience on some phenomenal handsets. Abroad, though, on a data-hungry device, that can burn through megabytes? Dangerous.

A little while ago I did a test of my Nexus S compared to by BlackBerry Bold in France. The Nexus tore through my 25mb daily allowance in — if memory serves — about 40 minutes. I had to struggle hard with my BlackBerry to get it to get anywhere near that limit, just because so much of the data to/from the device is highly optimised, both in terms of volume and frequency.

Androids are — typically — like an open tap, from a bandwidth perspective. This is a beautiful thing when you’ve got WiFi or you’re home on your (semi) unlimited data price plan.

So when you’re abroad, it’s important to keep tabs on what you’re doing, data wise.

Further, it’s important to try and get the best value you can from your data plan — especially when roaming.

Enter Onavo.

Their iPhone app sits in the background and compresses your data traffic. Not just that, but it closely monitors what each app on your phone does from a data usage standpoint.

They’ve just released an Android version — Onavo Lite. This one doesn’t do compression but acts as a monitor. (I’m speculating here, but I reckon a future premium version will do this).

Here are some notable features:

- Alerts and warnings. Receive status notifications about apps that are hogging your data, when approaching your data cap, or when traveling (data roaming). Onavo Lite will even predict when you will reach your monthly cap.

- Data hog blocking. Restrict specific apps to WiFi, or block your 3G data altogether once you exceed your data cap to avoid any additional costs.

- Crowdsourcing. Join the Onavo Android Community to tap into the collective wisdom of Android users everywhere. This will help you keep your mobile data in check, letting you know whether an app is safe to use as soon as you download it.

- Advice. Get tailored tips on best value data plans from your carrier or other carriers, based on your actual usage.

- Simple setup. Get going in seconds: Set your monthly cap, bill cycle and cost – and you’re good to go!

Of course you don’t just need to use Onavo when you’re roaming — when you’re at home you’ll want to know if one of your apps is going nuts in the background killing your battery and domestic data allowance. I reckon it would be worth installing.

Have you tried it? Let me know how you got on?

Simon explained it’s his job to be negative — to find fault, to exploit, to challenge — to help his clients understand the risks and implications of, for example, deploying a new service plan or introducing a new product to the market.

I took along my little camera to see if I could get a few words from Simon. He readily agreed. So if you’re into billing or mobile fraud (I know that there are lot of folk reading working in this area) or you have a passing interest, do check out Simon’s interview.

I’ve taken out my prompt questions so we’ve got one 6 minute stream of consciousness from Simon. I’m particularly interested in the continuing theme of ‘trust’ that he frequently mentions. It’s a real kettle of fish. And whilst I’m outside the industry hopping up and down screaming for innovation, talking with people such as Simon serves as a reminder that we do need things implemented properly.

See what you think of the implications and points he makes:

(By the way — if you’re reading from RSS, you might need to click through to see the video embed above.)

Thanks for taking the time Simon!

Cool looking PacSun models

Here’s another example of enterprise iPad usage — much like the Lowe’s news this week, it’s clear that businesses are ultra keen on putting smart technology such as the iPad in the hands of their customer-facing people.

Right now, sales people in shops are often highly redundant beyond issuing a greeting and helping you pay for goods.

“Have you got this in size [whatever]?” usually results in the sales person walking out the back to check and returning to tell you, “No, sorry.”

It really irritates me.

This is why I usually shop online.

But if the sales person was able to say, “No, we don’t have it in blue here, today, but… tap, tap, tap, I can have it sent to you for tomorrow morning?”

Yup.

I’d probably end up buying more.

This is the rough concept, I think, behind what PacSun is up to. Have a read here and then do click-through for more information from the team at Internet Retailer.

Like a handful of other merchants, Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., better known as PacSun, is blurring the line between sales channels by introducing iPads in stores. The retailer has armed sales associates in more than 300 locations with the popular tablet computers to give associates full product information at their fingertips and enable them to place orders on PacSun’s e-commerce site for customers when a product is out of stock in the store. PacSun will deploy iPads in an additional 100 stores by year’s end

via Mobile Commerce – PacSun arms store associates with iPads – Internet Retailer.

(Incidentally, if you’re a PacSun fan, they’re now shipping to the UK!)

Routinely, WiFi hotspots are so SHIT that I simply have to rely on my MiFi unit for connectivity. Three’s data network is amongst the best in the business — and the MiFi unit is a brilliant way of unlocking that for all your connectivity needs.

I used to regularly travel up and down the M4 motorway and goodness me, the networks — Three in particular — seem to have got that motorway connected properly. I was able to stay connected at what felt like desktop data speeds for my whole journey. [I want to point out, I wasn't driving!]

The MiFi gets me out of a heck of a lot of tight spots though. You know the scene — turn up at an office and find that their guest WiFi needs 16-layers of security confirmation. Or arrive into a pub to do some work and find that the bollocks BT Openzone wants to charge you on a pence-per-minute basis. Stupid. Scenarios like this have me reaching for the MiFi all the time. I don’t even bother taking it out my bag. I just feel for the power switch, depress it for a second and then see the WiFi connection pop-up.

So I’m a big user. Three’s current MiFi unit is the Huawei E585. Here’s a quick reminder:

It’s great. The battery feels like it lasts most of the business day. In practice after about 4-5 hours of continuous use, I need to power it up. Provided you’re in a city centre location, I generally find the throughput speeds to be comparable to a desktop broadband connection.

That was then.

Now the next generation is upon us: The E586. Let’s have a photo:

Right. This one is HSPA+ which means that you’ll get up to 21.1Mbps down (“HSDPA”) and 5.76Mbps up (“HSUPA”). Amazing. Three reckons it should be about 40% faster. (80% of the operator’s network will be fully HSPA+ compliant by the end of the year.)

They’ve made a few nice improvements — apparently the dashboard has got a nice upgrade. I’m hopeful on this one. It was a little bit ‘Huwaei bog standard’ for my tastes but it certainly did the job. There’s also a smart new feature that enables users to see the WiFi username/password on-screen at the touch of a button, ‘for fast pairing with new gadgets’.

Somebody at Three has obviously given their MiFi a lot of use. One of the slight arses with the MiFi is having to open up the battery case to get the WiFi access code. Good thinking. See the picture above? See the button with the ‘key’ on it, top right on the side? I reckon that’s the one you press to get a reminder of the device password.

If you’re a big user of the internal memory card functionality (so you can access via your connected devices), that’s now upgraded to support 32GB micro SD cards.

And a final new addition? This:

That there is a fancy new charging cradle. This will be highly useful if you’re a regular MiFi user as you’ll want to pop it in the charger often.

This new unit should be available in-store and online from September. There’s no word on costs yet but I’d expect it will be priced similarly (if not exactly the same) as the existing E585. So, on PAYG the E585 costs £71.99 including 3GB of data. I’d expect it to be free on a 20/month contract. I think that’s what I’ll go for when it comes out.

Anyway, stay tuned. I’ll post a note when it’s available.

I asked the team at WeDo to answer my questions to give us an overview of the fraud issue — my intent is then to explore the themes in more detail over the coming months.

So here we go — my questions are in bold. Over to Sergio Silvestre, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at WeDo Technologies:

- – - – -

1. Give us a background to the company, what are the products/services and what type of customer(s) do you serve?

WeDo Technologies was founded in 2001 and is owned by the Portuguese conglomerate the Sonae Group. WeDo is a Lisbon-based vendor that supplies Business and Revenue Assurance solutions and services, sometimes also called Profit or Revenue Protection, to the telecom, retail, energy and insurance and banking sectors. Simply put, this means using systems to improve operational effectiveness and manage risk – countering issues associated with fraud, credit control and data retention and management for example.

As trading conditions become ever more competitive and the technologies that support success continue to increase in complexity, system and business process monitoring and control activities have become vital to every company’s future. It is only by applying these intelligently and appropriately in both tactical and strategic ways that enterprises can deliver strong, direct and easy-to-track returns on their investment that directly impact on the bottom line.

It is only in recent years however that the software industry has finally been able to deliver the right tools at the right price and turn this concept into everyday practice. At the forefront of this development, WeDO offers both professional services and business consulting. Our business assurance platform, RAID, allows us to design and configure solutions to meet the specific needs of our more than 100 customers’ requirements and business processes. Currently, 7 out of 10 of the largest mobile CSPs in the world are WeDo’s customers.

2. Most of us reading will have a basic awareness of telephone fraud – i.e. tricking a call box into giving out coins or letting me call America for free. But nowadays, what constitutes ‘fraud’ in the context of the mobile industry?

It’s true that consumers might understand telephone fraud as simply jacking a call box, or tricking it to make long distance calls. However, fraud in the telecoms sector is a lot more sophisticated and varied than that – and is often conducted by highly organised groups of professional fraudsters who operate their own businesses and need to “service” their own customers.

Their business model for committing fraud spans all types of technology and crosses international boundaries, and has traditionally relied heavily on the CSPs’ inability to respond and recover in a timely manner.

Frauds can be launched using a variety of different methods – through the SIM card for example, stealing the identity of a mobile phone or hacking into the network, via the mobile subscription, through SMS and MMS schemes, voicemail, roaming, m-commerce and other new technological advances such as M2M and NFC.

3. Just how big a problem is fraud? Is it really an issue?

Fraud is a huge issue, not just for fixed or mobile operators but for all types of businesses. Fraud and revenue loss costs billions of dollars every year having steadily climbed over the years with no signs of abating – in fact all signs point to it being on the increase. Fraudsters were previously considered to be ‟opportunists‟, but experience shows they are now “business men” seeking out their prey by targeting specific CSPs or services that provide the greatest revenue return but at a substantial cost to the CSP.

Unfortunately for operators, the odds of being successful heavily favour the fraudsters as they know and determine exactly when the fraud hit will take place, and as the number of products and services in the telecoms and mobile worlds increase, offering new revenue streams, they are also opening up new ways for criminals to exploit them for ill gotten gain.

Fraud loss is not something that is recoverable – it is not like a revenue leakage issue that can be corrected or easily recovered from once detected. Fraud is a continuous battle with ever changing rules of engagement, and therefore effective fraud management requires a specific mindset, approach and strategy. Companies have to be savvy to this, employing fraud management and revenue assurance considerations to all their planning, ensuring they have best-of-breed fraud and RA (“revenue assurance”) solutions to detect frauds and irregularities in their network and curtail the damage. Those who don’t will pay the price in their margins.

4. Who is behind the fraud? Are they typically organised gangs or enterprising individuals?

Who is behind fraud varies between the industry and the market in which they operate. It’s very varied. In retail it can be an individual heading into the store and tampering with clothing tags and trying to move goods out of the store for example.

In telecoms however, fraudsters are typically well organised groups that are very knowledgeable about technology and networks. They need this level of understanding to launch attacks, as it is quite a sophisticated thing to do. They are very professional in what they do – so operators need to be at the top of their game to defeat them.

5. What sorts of fraud problems do new technologies like NFC and M2M throw into the mix?

Newer technologies like NFC and M2M can throw up a number of challenges for operators in terms of fraud and RA. A new range of M2M devices and the resulting end-to-end services will span consumer electronics, business enterprise, automotive, industrial/utilities and medical industries. The demand and requirements for this progression will ultimately result in more third party deals with strategic partners, and that in itself is a security risk. Are they trusted third party providers? Remote and unguarded locations, and a lack of M2M device control once deployed, could also pose fraud and revenue loss problems for operators.

When the billing model approach is different from a traditional SIM contract and M2M usage is not controlled or monitored until something actually goes wrong, then the threat of fraud going undetected and unstopped rises.

The problem with NFC is that it makes the interaction as simple as possible, without recourse to security measures such as PIN codes etc. Users just touch or pass very closely by an object to get or transfer the information.

This means the concept is open to a number of social and technical frauds and risks. Today the distance that the signal can be transferred is measured in centimetres, but it will increase. This is already being seen with chip based passports, where groups are attacking the technology to steal identity with a lot of success. Software is available on the Web to do this now and this uses the same RFID technology.

If you can steal an identity from a passport, you can also steal an identity from a mobile phone, and you can use that identity to purchase goods for resale.

Other threats exist in the form of malware and viruses, or even radio frequency interference, all causing RFID to malfunction resulting in revenue loss.

6. How do you fix the problem for your customers?

The battle against fraudsters will never be entirely won due to the fast moving telecoms environment and the drive to launch more complex products and services quickly to attract market share and maintain a competitive advantage.

This will always lead to procedural weaknesses and technical risks being introduced which fraudsters will seize upon at the earliest opportunity to keep their fraudulent “business” activities operational and profits high.

However, CSPs can deploy various defence mechanisms to mitigate against losses and ensure fast detection by ensuring processes are continually reviewed, staff are educated in new fraud trends, new products and services are assessed for fraud and security weaknesses and state of the art technology is used to quickly raise alerts for suspect activity. What is needed is a balanced approach that takes into consideration technology, people and processes working together and supported by executive level management to create an effective fraud strategy. This will enable effective defence mechanisms to be deployed in the right places at the right time.

7. Where do we find out more?  Whitepaper? More information on the site?

If you visit our own site — or the site of our business consultancy division — you can find out more information about what we do and the areas of fraud management and revenue assurance. We have published a number of whitepapers on topics from increasing profits operations and management and telecoms fraud management to more specific looks at smart metering and embedded mobile (M2M).

- WeDo Technologies Publishes Best Practice for M2M Fraud Protection and Security
- How Mature is Fraud and Revenue Assurance industry now?

8. What are the biggest telecom frauds?

International revenue share fraud cost the global telecoms industry a few billion last year. It’s a very sensitive area that must be approached in a sensible way. Fraudsters racked up this sum by generating high volumes of calls to premium rate numbers, or countries with high termination rates. A premium rate number fraud typically involves web-based resellers of high-value international numbers.

Fraudsters acquire the numbers and then generate high volumes of calls to the numbers in order to ramp up their share of the revenues created. We predict that the issue could get worse as operators transition to all-IP networks. The pending risk makes it all the more important that operators’ fraud management systems are closely integrated with revenue assurance setups and can adapt to rapidly changing attack scenarios.

9. Which regions are specifically suffering from these frauds?

All regions of the world suffer from fraud. It’s a global problem and very difficult to pick out areas where it’s particularly bad. A common trend is that frauds are perpetrated from countries that don’t have so many formal extradition deals, from smaller island jurisdictions or from countries that are not internationally recognised. Many frauds are perpetrated from the developing world countries against networks in more developed countries. But that isn’t gospel – it’s a hard question to answer. If you have the knowhow you can perpetrate frauds.

- – - – -

Thank you for taking the time Sergio!

I’m aiming to meet with WeDo Technologies soon to see if I can capture them on camera.

Lookout Premium -- highly useful for Android users

Thanks to reader Mark for sending me over this story from Ars Technica. It describes how author Jon Barrow managed to eventually recover his lost phone using Plan B from Lookout Mobile Security.

Jon was lucky because he lost an Android phone — and since it had the latest version of the OS, he was able to remotely install Plan B. The software then responded to his location requests by sending him an email with a Google Map showing the phone’s precise location.

I swear by Smrtguard (which runs on multiple platforms) although I use it primarily on my BlackBerry. It reunited me with my pre-release BlackBerry 9780 review unit last year. (Read: I lost my phone in London!)

The problem, of course, is if you haven’t installed some tracking software on your phone (and you don’t have the capacity to remotely install some), then you’re well and truly screwed.

Therefore, here is a helpful guide. Do something about it today, right? It’ll be typical that you read this post, make a to-do item about it, then go out to lunch and lose your phone.

iPhone & iPad
You’re in luck because the geniuses at Apple have given you the Find my iPhone function. All you need to do is setup a MobileMe account on the iPhone, enable it with these instructions and boom, you’re done. If you lose your phone, you can either use the Find My iPhone app on another device to locate it, or you can visit www.me.com, login with your MobileMe credentials and locate the phone from there.

I’ve used this loads of times, most often when I can’t remember where I put my iPhones. It’s so useful to be able to get a general location (i.e. the phone IS at home) or the phone IS in the car.The Find My iPhone functionality is free of charge.

Android
Well, it seems like Jon from Ars Technica had a really good experience with Plan B — you can download that for free or, you can pick up the full version by downloading Lookout Premium ($2.99/month or $29.99/year). You can also pick up SmrtGuard for Android at a slightly more expensive $3.99/month.

These might seem costly, especially if you aren’t into buying apps, but you will rue the day, RUE the day, if you didn’t spent the two-quid or three-quid when you’ve stupidly lost your £600 top-of-the-range Android phone.

BlackBerry
I thoroughly recommend SmrtGuard for BlackBerry — that’s how I was able to recover my phone. I was actually in my ‘free 30 day trial’ when I lost and subsequently recovered the phone, so when I got home, I bought the full version. I felt it was only right. This was before RIM announced BlackBerry Protect, the equivalent of Find my iPhone for the BlackBerry. I tested it in Beta and I’ve been using it live and found it highly useful. I very much recommend it.

Windows Phone
Right then, I’m not so sure about Windows. I’m going to have to do some research on this one. Update: Duh. Of course, it’s built-in. I totally forgot. See below.

Samsung
Thanks to reader Nigel Jones who points out on Google+ that the Samsung Galaxy SII comes with a find-my-phone feature out of the box. I think we’re going to see more and more of the manufacturers include these services as standard.

It’s not just about location

One point — most of the providers of location/find-your-phone services haven’t stopped there. SmrtGuard, for instance, will backup your device content, so will Lookout and BlackBerry Protect. Most will also give you the option to remotely lock your phone, or have it play a sound to help you find it behind the sofa. SmrtGuard will even function as a panic-button, sending off a silent note for help across a ton of different channels. Lookout for Android will help prevent phishing and malware and it’ll scan your apps for telltale signs of mischief — something you really do need on Android.

This is one of those things that I strongly, strongly recommend you fix today. Go and find one of these services, install it, test it and relax.

Related Solutions
Update: There’s quite a wealth of possibilities out there — here are a few others I’ve come across (or been sent):

- itrack Protect, www.itrackprotect.com
This is a hugely comprehensive product offering aimed at anyone who’s serious about tracking location. It can most certainly be used personally — for example, I could imagine installing this on my child’s phone. However I think itrack will be absolutely perfect for business purposes, especially since it’s based on installable software that runs on your PC (to then access the itrack information). So if you run a team of social workers who’re forever finding themselves in dodgy situations or a team of lone workers, this looks to be immensely ideal. The fundamental difference with this product is you don’t need to mess around with application installs. It uses the mobile network to get the phone’s position (so the device is largely irrelevant).

- Track and Protect by Klomptek, trackandprotect.com
Produced by mobile phone geniuses Klomptek, this one was suggested by Rafe Blandford. He’s done a thorough review. The service offers a range of facilities including lock, lock+alarm, unlock, wipe, callback and so on. I particularly like the ability to see remote camera shots sent from the phone. That is really, really smart. (Works on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian)

- Windows Phone
Thank you to @facefacts who points out that Windows Phone has the find & location functions built-in — OF COURSE it does — duh, silly me. I completely forgot. I even have this activated on my Windows Phone. Just make sure you’ve ticked the right options. Here are the full details.

- AndroidLost, androidlost.com
A work in-progress (but nevertheless live) that includes some phenomenally cool features. For example, using the text-to-speech functionality, you can have your phone remotely say, “Hello! Help! I am lost!” in that semi-creepy computer voice. Very cool indeed. It looks to be free — and for Android only.

- Theft Aware, theftaware.com
Suggested by reader @aktiwary, Theft Aware looks to be seriously smart. It’s apparently completely invisible so if your phone is stolen, the thief is going to find it incredibly difficult to disable. You can configure everything remotely via SMS. The list of features is absolutely huge. I particularly like the idea of making my phone remotely place a hidden call to me so I can hear what the thief is up to! Theft Aware works on Android and Symbian.

- WaveSecure, wavesecure.com
This is now owned by McAfee and supports probably the widest array of platforms: Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows, Java and Android. It’s $19.90 a year and it delivers the standard range of features you’d expect (backup, locate, wipe). It also includes an anti-installation feature to prevent pesky thieves from removing the app.

- PreyProject, preyproject.com
Looks to be one of the most comprehensive cross-device offerings. It’ll work on your Android phone, but it’ll also secure your Mac, Windows, Linux or Ubuntu laptops. It’s when you consider the theft of a laptop that Prey really comes into it’s own. The app will do things like hide your Outlook or Thunderbird data. Precisely the sort of thing you want to happen if it’s been stolen. At the same time, you’ll get precise geolocation updates and you’ll even get photos of the thieves and screenshots of their actions. Starts at $5/month for 3 devices (which is pretty reasonable if you’ve got one Android phone and, say, two laptops, that you want to protect).

- Gadgettrak, gadgettrak.com
Another provider focusing on iOS devices alongside RIM, Android, Windows and Mac — highly useful if you’d like to protect multiple devices. There’s a 7-day free trial and then the desktop service costs $19.95/year and the mobile service $19.95. There’s also a family pack option. I very much like their Camera Serial Number Search — which lets you search the internet for people who’ve taken photos using your (stolen) camera. Smart.

Related to Gadgettrak, this Tumblr blog details a live scenario of some stolen phones. It’s very cool to see the technology in action.

- BitDefender, m.bitdefender.com
The team at BitDefender has just added two new features to it’s MobileSecurity for Android BETA offering: Anti-theft allows users to easily track the location of their device and remotely wipe as necessary, plus users can now scan their SD Card to protect against malware.

If you’ve got suggestions for other services for readers to consider, please do drop me a note or leave a comment below and I’ll update the post.

Did you see me on the BBC Breakfast News at the weekend, suited-and-booted?

There was some discussion in the MacLeod household over the appropriate clothing to wear. Open shirt? Jacket-n-shirt? Nope. Mothers and mother-in-laws were almost consulted before I took the pinstripe decision. You can’t go wrong with a pinstripe.

And, as my wife pointed out, ‘It’s the BBC.’

Suit and tie.

I was invited on to discuss mobile roaming. The news broke last week that the EU is going further with it’s roaming cap demands. Just looking at data roaming, here’s what’s being proposed (via WSJ):

Currently, data roaming is subject to a maximum safeguard cap of €50 ($73), but starting next July it would be capped at 90 European cents ($1.31) per megabyte, according to the draft. The cost ceiling for data used would decrease to 70 cents a megabyte in 2013 and 50 cents a megabyte 2014, and would remain at that level until June 30, 2016, when the regulation expires.

Ouch. And then for voice calls:

The EU last week said retail price caps for voice calls are set to decline to 32 cents a minute for outgoing calls or 11 cents a minute for incoming calls as of July 1, 2012. By July 2013, the caps would fall again to 28 cents and 10 cents, respectively. The retail price for an SMS text message would be capped at 10 cents from July 1, 2012.

Again, ouch.

So with that in mind, I was there to discuss the topic of mobile roaming for the Saturday audience.

There wasn’t the time to get stuck into the subject matter — and I’m reasonably content that most of the people watching didn’t wish to do so. I pointed out that it was utterly important that all viewers give their mobile operator a call — or have a look on the website to check the price of data roaming and see what plans they could add or change if they’re going abroad this summer.

I managed to get in the rather shocking ’40%’ statistic. Have you come across this one? It’s from mobile roaming experts, MACH, who point out that mobile operators in Europe report that collectively (that is, across all their subscribers combined) 40% of customers switch their mobile phones off when abroad. That is, they actively DO NOT roam — because (one presumes) of ‘billshock’. That is a testament to how poorly priced roaming has been — and still is.

I think it’s fair to say that most consumers understand what per-minute call costs ‘mean’. 36p a minute, for example, is easy to calculate. If you do a quick, ‘hello, I’ve arrived’ and then hang-up, you’ll be charged 36p. Job done.

But if you send a photo? And you’ve been told (helpfully, I might add, by text from your operator when you arrive) that you’ll be charged £1.28 per megabyte, what does that mean? How much to send the photo of the beautiful beach vista before you up to Facebook?

This is the key problem with data roaming. Nobody knows what it will cost.

Even if you pay attention to the ‘small/medium/large’ file sizes, the fact that the photo might be 600k doesn’t mean you’ll be charged 600k .You have to load up the email client, for example — and do an email check (automatically). And then you have to allow for the overhead of transmitting back and forth. Or if you’re loading the Facebook client, you have next to no idea what it’s doing, data wise. You might end up using 5mb to upload a 600k photo.

But it’s all roundly good news. Broadly speaking, data roaming prices are coming down. There are some super offers available.

Alas I didn’t get the chance to congratulate Vodafone Ireland (or, in BBC parlance, ‘a leading mobile operator’) on offering FREE mobile data roaming across 27 European countries this summertime (July & August). That is truly genius. I’m going to be writing about that shortly.

It was nevertheless super to be able to discuss mobile roaming with a wider audience.

As for the photo above? Well thank you to @mobilemandan for snapping it. Come on Dan, wasn’t there a slimmer version you could have captured at a different camera angle?

Anyway, it’s an improvement over this action-shot that @stuartdredge helpfully captured. My head looks shrunk on one side. I still very much appreciate the timeliness Stuart. Twitter actually records you publishing the photo at 09:24am — so based on the timestamp on the screen, that took just 60 seconds for you to get that one out. Very fast!

Update: A top hat tip for @stephenwing for recommending me (and @bensmithuk) to the BBC

I came across it in the ‘Demo Lab’ area at MACH Insights 2011. It’s showing off a MACH product by the name of the Data Roaming Engine which enables a massively flexible raft of policies and controls allowing operators to get rather inventive with their roaming deals.

The concept is this. You arrive on to a gorgeous desert island and you immediately put your phone into ‘no data roaming’ mode.

However you then get a text message from your operator encouraging you to browse (for free) the possible roaming options. One of the items in the shopping cart is (for example), the ability to browse Facebook free for a whole day for just €2. When you select and confirm, you can then use Facebook ’til your heart is content, for that hour/day/week/period.

There’s a few other options shown in the video.

This is the kind of inventive thing I’d like to see operators play with, especially given the fact that 42% of travellers deliberately do not use roaming (MACH’s figure) and the vast majority of the rest of the users are ultra careful about what they spend (my viewpoint).

Here’s the video:

And another point I’d like to raise is flexibility. If operators get themselves a decent roaming control engine, then they can easily test and experiment with different options without having to pay crazy amounts of money to change their billing systems for every little marketing test.

Well, goodness me. This one is a market mover and simply unbelievable!

This morning Nigel Smith, Group Chief Executive of HSBC took to the stage to announce the purchase of the UK’s smallest mobile network operator, 3UK. It’s no secret that parent company, Hutchison Whampoa has lately been considering options for their mobile operator portfolio and in HSBC, it seems they’ve found a willing partner. Indeed it looks like HSBC may go on to pick up Hutchison’s mobile operations in Denmark, Italy and Hong Kong.

HSBC’s Smith explained to a packed audience that the company was tired of waiting for the mobile industry to deliver a consolidated approach to the mobile wallet.

“For a few years now we’ve been studying the market,” explained Smith, “And we’re utterly baffled as to why the mobile industry can’t seem to get it’s act together.”

“Whenever we’ve spoken to key operators, they keep telling us that they’re waiting for Apple to do something — or that their hands are tied because they don’t have a banking license.”

“Well,” continued Smith, “We do — and the quickest way to get things moving was to buy an operator. We’re going to make the mobile wallet a reality for 3 million people in the UK starting today.”

Given that mobile operators already effectively have a credit relationship with each of their customers, it’s not that difficult to extend the relationship to that of being a bank.

Smith went on to outline HSBC’s on-going plans:

“Every 3UK customer will — effective 30th April — receive a MasterCard multi-function credit card tied directly to their mobile account.”

That card can be used for any purchase under £10. Purchases will be billed to your mobile account (for contract customers) or be deducted from your credit (for PAYG customers).

It gets better though as Smith explains:

“For HSBC, the medium of mobile is just the delivery medium for financial transactions. We don’t see it as a profit centre. So for that reason, we’re converting all existing 3UK contract customers to a standard unlimited £5 per month tariff. And when we say unlimited, we mean it.”

Smith said he expects customers from other networks to flock to 3UK stores as a result of this move, but that priority will be given to those who already have HSBC bank accounts but are not yet customers of 3UK (or “HSBC Mobile” as the service is to become).

“To begin with, we’ll give priority to our existing banking customers — but starting July 8th, we expect to be able to open access to all customers.”

HSBC is pumping £500m into 3UK this year in an effort to boost the mobile operator’s basic infrastructure and to cope with the anticipated demand which, some fear, could easily overwhelm the company’s existing capabilities.

“This investment will ensure we’re able to meet the expectations of our customers and our shareholders at all times.”

There’s one more twist, though: Smith revealed that integration discussions have already taken place with Google, Apple and Samsung regarding future collaborations (there’s speculation Microsoft and Nokia may come aboard too). This would mean that users of iPhones and Android devices (for example) would, provided they were HSBC customers, be able to swipe their NFC-HSBC-Mobile-enabled devices at over 200m point-of-sale units worldwide.

“Frankly we’re all tired of waiting — so whilst the other operators dither, I’m delighted to say that HSBC is positioning itself at the heart of the mobile marketplace.”

Smith finished his announcement by showing off one of the all new HSBC Mobile branded Google Nexus S devices, declaring, “It’s simply unbelievable!”

I couldn’t agree more.

Here are my slides from this Monday’s presentation at The Big M mobile event in Bath:

Update: The slides made the ‘spotlight’ section of Slideshare — thanks to the editors there!

I’m delighted to say that it’s everything I expected: Clear packaging, simple instructions, evidently the output of a team of smart people who’ve really thought about it. Everything you need to go live is right there in the little package including all the APN details you need.

I filmed an ‘unboxing’ — that is, opening up the little package and having a nose about. I hope this is useful for anyone considering getting one. Just a quick reminder — the SIM offers mobile data roaming in 50 countries (including the US) for a unified simple fee of €0.59 per megabyte. Now, that will soon add up if you plan on a significant amount of use, but at least the pricing is clear, reasonable and you can immediately re-load it whenever you want. I think that’s probably the *best* feature, not having to arse about going into ‘foreign’ shops to get it charged up. You can either use PayPal or your credit card to top it up.

Most other operators will charge you at least €1 or £1 per megabyte, if not a lot more.

Abroadband do a MicroSIM for your iPad/iPhone and a pre-configured USB dongle. I went for the normal SIM as I’m intending using it in my MiFi unit.

I recognise that this doesn’t necessarily compare to a €15 all-you-can-eat deal that you get if you go shopping locally, but if you are in-and-out of the 50 countries covered — and you just need to check email and do a bit of twittering, Abroadband could be for you.

Now, I haven’t actually tried the SIM yet. I’m going to get a screen recorder installed and I’ll detail that soon so we can see precisely how it works — especially in terms of re-loading credit.

Abroadband is the brainchild of the team at Telekom Austria. I wrote about their launch late last month here.

Here’s the vid:

I’m not interested in featuring just any developer in the series, though. I’m looking for developers who’ve actually gone beyond the bog-standard iPhone app. I’m looking for developers with demonstrable vision, talent and serious capabilities. Fundamentally, I’m looking to profile developers who understand that whilst today might be all about the App Store, tomorrow is about delivering an interconnected experience, ideally built upon and using the whole power of the network.

For a long time now I’ve been a little frustrated with the current crop of point-and-click application interface layers that we see on today’s mobile phones. As I noted back in May, it’s just not good enough. I need things to be faster, more connected and more reliable. If anything, I need the network to do a lot of the basic thinking for me.

When you talk to developers, the idea of being able to control a mobile network — or at least influence it via a standard Twitter-like API is outrageously cool, but utterly impossible. So much so that most developers don’t actually think about this. They have sensibly stuck to the API documents for the handsets because working with operators is generally impossible. The holy grail with mobile development is the ability to connect your application (or service) to the mobile operator network layer(s) — allowing you to do all kinds of phenomenal things. The sad reality is that this kind of thing has been out of reach for far too long.

It was, therefore, rather exciting to hear what Telefonica is doing with BlueVia. Suffice to say that the mobile operator API I’ve been screaming about for some time has arrived. In the first instance, the BlueVia APIs allow for the ability to originate and receive SMS, include mobile advertising and query user context (e.g. handset, connection speed, parental controls). This is available for 80 million people right now, including the entire o2 UK customer base. Needless so say, given Telefonica’s huge worldwide footprint, there’s a lot more coming both in terms of market access and functionality.

I sat down with James Parton from BlueVia recently to fire a load of questions at him. During that meeting I remarked that I’d like to see how leading mobile developers would use the initial APIs available on BlueVia. I had all sorts of ideas. I am particularly enamoured by the revenue model. I’m going to be investigating this in a lot more depth but let me summarise it thus: You can monetise all the message traffic generated by your app and, at the same time, avoid having to pay an SMS aggregator to send messages! Plus, you can plug straight into the BlueVia mobile advertising system with just a few lines of code. By the end of the meeting we’d worked out a plan whereby BlueVia would sponsor a series of posts here on Mobile Industry Review.

Are you a Mobile Developer Titan?

Therefore I am now on the hunt for mobile developers who’d like to be profiled in this series. To qualify, you need to:

a) Have had at least 2 applications published on one of the mobile application stores (or have developed a rocking mobile web application)

b) Have the capabilities to integrate one of BlueVia’s standard APIs into a demo version of your app so we can see how you’ve interfaced with the network layer. Screenshots or a video is fine. This qualification sets the men from the boys. (Or the women from the girls.) If your programmers can’t handle BlueVia’s industry standard restful interface, you probably shouldn’t be featured as a ‘Titan’ anyway.

c) Demonstrate that you quality for Mobile Titan status. This is defined by you and then agreed with by me. Tell me why you’re good. (Please don’t be British and say you’re ‘ok’. If you’ve created a series of amazing apps and you think you should be profiled, say so.)

The profile piece will include background on your organisation, a focus on your app(s) along with your opinion on the marketplace plus a showcase of your hacking skills featuring some kind of BlueVia API integration. For those developers located in the UK, I’d like to film a video interview with you showing off your work.

To be clear though, the series is open to anyone, anywhere. It’s platform agnostic. Symbian, Samsung Bada, Vodafone 360/JIL, Apple, Android, the whole shebang. Plus mobile web application developers — I’m particularly keen to talk to some of them.

I’ve a few developers in mind already who I’d like to showcase, but I wanted to get this post up first before beginning to decide.

The resulting profile piece will be published on the frontpage of Mobile Industry Review in a dedicated section. The site gets some phenomenally influential readers normally — but I’ve agreed with James that each of the profile pieces from this series will be circulated around Telefonica’s senior management and syndicated on BlueVia’s online properties. So if you’d like to get on Telefonica’s radar with your application or service, this is quite possibly one of the best opportunities ever.

Logistics

- If you’re a public relations professional representing a mobile developer, please do check that your client can manage option ‘b’above before dropping me a note
- I’m aiming to begin publishing within a few weeks
- I’ll aim to showcase the first 10 developers who get in touch — however I reserve the right to say no if I don’t think you meet criteria A and C in the list above

If you’ve any questions, drop me a note. As always I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

We have less than 100 hours to go until the doors of the world’s biggest and best known mobile conference swing open in Barcelona for another year, so let’s pause to see what we have to look forward to.

As all good conferences, there’s nothing like guzzling alcohol paid for by someone else (who you most likely spent most of the day bitching about). The MWC veteran @LisaWhelan has put together an excellent MWC party list at so start clicking (or tell your PA to). Many are free and not all are yet full.

For something a little more interactive the Mobile Woodstock crew have created an unofficial app. Download it here.

What will be in the news?

The PR machine of companies large and small will be in overdrive. Here are my picks:

• Tablet nirvana – tablets will be the “touch” of last year
• Shrinking femto cells, 4G, smart downloading – everyone will be promising “it will be faster”
• App Store arguments will rage on – it’s the new “who’s king of content” conversation of old
• and finally, Nokia will announce something big in terms of O/S direction and be criticised for it
  ..or they won’t and they’ll be criticised for that too.

View of the madness from the steps going up to the Museum of National Art of Catalonia, Photo credit: Philipp Deprez

The Social Network

I’m always sceptical when unwieldy organisations try and build their own “social network”. In their wisdom the GSMA are no exception and if you attended last year you can go ahead and login; otherwise sign up provided you have a pass. To be fair to the GSMA you can download the Powerpoint presentations post the event although I do find page loads terribly slow.

• Did you use the MWC Social Network last year? Useful or a complete waste of time? Let us know in the comment or tweet @mobileindustry

First time at MWC?

For first timers at MWC, read the seven top tips for Mobile World Congress which have been posted on Mobile Industry Review the last weeks; or follow my quick 5 reminders are below:

• Stealing is rife. Barcelona has it’s charms but also it’s problems. Yes you always think it won’t happen to you; but it may well. For Valentine week Barcelona is literally the bag-snatch and petty thief capital of the world. Adopt absolute vigilance.
• Eating is a hassle. Cues for “lunch” consisting of a dry baguette with slice of dead pig can be long. Restaurants nearby are booked or full. So eat at unusual times and plan ahead.
• Accommodation is expensive. Oh wait, you didn’t already book? Good luck…you’ll need it.
• Consultant constipation. There will be more social media gurus and corporate consultants this year than ever before as the role of Twitter and Facebook for businesses grows rapidly. A lot of these people haven’t actually done that much in tech, mobile or social media. The latter is the new gold rush – the new SEO. It is valuable – so don’t underestimate your lack of strategy – but sharlatons are rife. You’ve been warned.
• Meetings madness. Don’t meet with people who come from where you live. It amazes me how many people ask to do this! With 50,000 delegates find those from a far flung place whom might benefit your business who you don’t usually see. In anycase, you’ll magnate back to familiar faces after the fifth or six beer anyway…
• Bonus tip: Did I mention Barcelona is full of thieves? On my 13^th trip to Barcelona, in a posh restaurant, sitting with 3 Googlers my bag including laptop, camera & passport disappeared; with the restaurant staff claiming no knowledge. Petty crime is so bad it’s almost worth leaving a phone on INSIDE your bag running Google Lattitude just incase some crook dressed in a suit scuttles off with it. You think it won’t happen to you – it will. The Police don’t care, the locals accept it and many bar/restaurant staff turn a blind eye. Be careful!

So, feeling prepared? If you have an interesting product, service, technology or application you’d like me to cover, please contact me.

See you in Basque country!

Calling all mobile entertainment startups! I’ve just sat down with Jef Frenette, the chap who’s managing the rather exciting Connected Creativity Ventures (“CC Ventures”) startup competition. (It’s part of the Connected Creativity at MIPTV event I wrote about yesterday.)

Jef is on the hunt for smart mobile entertainment startup companies to put in front of some of the most influential corporate, venture capitalist and application funds.

I’ve got a few companies in mind that I’m going to recommend, but if you’re working in the field of mobile entertainment, I reckon you should get stuck in.

Not only will you get the chance to pitch some of the entertainment industry’s top investors, but you’ll also get the ability to connect with senior executives from all the big entertainment companies looking for The Next Big Thing.

You can find more details on CC Ventures here and the application form here (word doc).

Or, if you’d like a direct introduction to Jef, just drop me a note.

I’ve been visiting Paris every week or so for the past month to work with the team at MIPTV’s Connected Creativity event.

MIPTV is where the world’s entertainment industry comes to discuss what’s new and what’s moving across the global entertainment marketplace.

Connected Creativity is a new addition to MIPTV this year. It’s dedicated to exploring the implications of mobile on the entertainment world.

For over a decade now I think it’s been fair to say that there’s been some kind of mobile entertainment market. For the most part, entertainment meant ‘ringtones’, some text games and some java games. And that was it. The arrival of the iPhone has really galvanised the entertainment market — so much so that I think it’s also fair to say that the global mobile entertainment marketplace has exploded in recent years.

It’s not just about the mobile device though. It’s about how that mobile device powers your entertainment across multiple channels.

The makers of the TV series Chuck or The Wire probably didn’t give much thought to mobile as a medium when they originally conceived their programming. However I purchased and consumed both entire shows on my iPhone. If your entertainment content isn’t available on the iPhone, I won’t be buying it.

I’m lucky to have both an iPhone, a BlackBerry and a Nokia N8. But if I just had one — let’s say the Nokia N8 — there is absolutely no way the entertainment world is having my money. NO way.

Because the entertainment world has largely ignored Nokia and their rather superb Ovi Store distribution platform. Ovi isn’t just about downloading apps. It’s fully content-capable. The same goes with RIM and BlackBerry. If I was just using a BlackBerry, you’d never have got my money.

Conventional wisdom says I’d have just gone and bought the DVDs.

No.

I’m too busy to watch them. I don’t have a DVD player. I gave my PlayStation to my sister-in-law so she could host regular SingStar parties. My Mac Pro Towers do have DVD-capable drives but I don’t use them for that.

My Mac Air doesn’t have a DVD drive. I’m ahead of the curve, I know. But it’s a curve.

Like many now, £9.99 or £15.99 or £19.99 (to download a TV series) is an irrelevant cost to me, if it means I can get entertainment when I need it. For me that means on my phone — and more specifically, for me it means on my iPhone as that’s my entertainment device of choice. I’m still amazed by the amount of content people who haven’t realised this or who are still arsing around ‘negotiating’ with platforms such as Apple, Ovi and RIM’s App World. If I can’t buy and download it easily, the chances are I’ll either get a copy for free from a friend or I’ll avoid giving you the money in the first place. For me, the latter is the reality.

Right now, nearly all of my mobile entertainment spend is routed through Apple. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m beginning to use my N8 more and more for entertaining games. Likewise, I’ve begun to sync my BlackBerry properly now (using their brilliant WiFi media sync system) so I have my key music playlists on there.

But music, video, movies, games apps… these are just touching the surface of mobile entertainment. The importance of connected entertainment — Connected Creativity — is just beginning to hit the wider market.

Back to the event. When the organisers at MIPTV invited me to help them programme their Connected Creativity event, I jumped at the chance.

The event is taking place on the 4th-7th of April in Cannes, France. If you’re involved in mobile entertainment, in any way, you should strongly consider attending.

I’m now becoming a regular visitor to their offices and it’s been very exciting watching the initial event programme begin to come together.

I’m particularly keen that the event doesn’t overly focus on Apple. I think that market is made and is working very well indeed. I’d really like to explore what’s going on beyond the iPhone and beyond the Western Apple iPhone bubble.

In the run-up to Connected Creativity I’m planning an array of posts focusing around the entertainment market. If you’d like to participate, drop me a note.

And if you’ve got any suggestions for speakers, panelists and companies, products or services that should be demonstrated to the 12,000 MIPTV entertainment executives, let me know.

As always I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

Find out more about the event here: http://connected-creativity.mipworld.com/