New White Paper, "European Mobile Market: Beyond Price-based Strategies"

Parks Associates has released a new white paper, "European Mobile Market: Beyond Price-based Strategies."

This new white paper examines challenges for mobile carriers in Europe and strategies to sustain ARPU and expand their base of postpaid users.

• Regulations, Competition, and Churn

• Evolving Beyond Price-based Strategies

• Examples of New Strategies: Vodafone, Telefonica, T-Mobile, & Orange

• The Road Ahead - Evolution of Carrier Strategies

To download this white paper, complete this online form.

Other recent white papers include Google TV- Searching for Success and Consumer Attitudes and the Benefits of Smart Grid Technologies.

Telecom Italia with a Hybrid OTT Set-top Box

Interesting news from Telecom Italia that they are going to deploy a hybrid set-top box (reported to be an Intel-based box supplied by Amino) that will receive broadcast DTT channels and online video.

With all of the hand-wringing going on about cord-cutting here in the U.S., I think the threat is far more serious in Europe, where free DTT service is already a barrier to growth for both IPTV and cable operators. We've heard from European operators that the hybrid set-top box supporting broadband-enabled VoD services will be a critical service in allowing them to keep at least a broadband connection in a home that doesn't desire a pay-TV subscription.

And, with Intel as part of the Telecom Italia mix, it looks like consumer electronics players may be able to take advantage of opportunities to provide service providers with a means to provide unique services to their customers. Could television manufacturers be allies for the operators? Perhaps, if we see more partnerships such as the one announced at CES between LG Electronics and France Telecom/Orange. I tend to think that the majority of hybrid deployments will involve lower-cost set-top boxes, but there's no reason to think that connected TVs, Blu-ray players, and other Web-enabled CE devices won't be able to take advantage of the VoD services being supplied over broadband connections by the service providers.

Rumbling of Mergers in Europe

Amidst the talk and challenges of a merger between France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom wireless operations in the U.K. comes the news of a possible tie up between Telecom Italia and Telefonica. Setting aside the political implications, this recent news seems to be another step in the courtship between the two behemoths. Telefonica recently completed the acquisition of HanseNet in Germany. Prior to the acquisition, HanseNet was a part of Telecom Italia's operations in Germany. It will be interesting to follow which portions of Telecom Italia's operations will be up for a merger if one were to actually happen. Coming to the political implications stated earlier, the news publication La Repubblica claims that the Berlusconi family bought into Telefonica late last year. That involves Mediaset now? This is turning out to be quite interesting.

The European market for connected TVs is heating up

France’s Orange is in talks with TV manufacturers Samsung, LG and Panasonic to integrate its services with TVs connected to the internet, according to a report in French financial daily Les Echos.

The number of actors attempting to bring the connected TV vision to reality in Europe is quite diverse. I am organizing my analysis of the market by the following categories:

• Operators acting independently (Orange);
• Operators acting within the framework of the Open IPTV Forum;
• Content owners and CE manufacturers (HbbTV);
• Technology vendors (IBM WebSphere Portal, Yahoo! Connected TV, etc.); and
• Connected TV companies acting independently to sign deals with individual content owners/providers.