Verizon NFL Mobile, Sprint Navigator, and Vodafone’s MusicStation among popular mobile content services

Almost 50% of U.S. mobile phone users pay for mobile Internet access, and the popularity of mobile data services will continue to grow revenues for carriers. Percentages of paying consumers are even higher for smartphone owners: 95% pay for SMS, 92% pay for Internet access, 83% pay for mobile email, 63% pay for mobile navigation, and 43% pay for mobile video.

In Mobile Data: Analysis and Forecasts, Parks Associates analysts forecast mobile data services, including messaging, Internet, apps, entertainment services, and machine-to-machine (M2M), will generate $500 billion in global revenues for mobile carriers in 2015, up from $204 billion in 2010.

Popular mobile content services include Verizon NFL Mobile, Sprint Navigator, China Mobile’s mobile newspaper service, and Vodafone’s MusicStation service. Carriers will derive most data revenues from access services, and content services, including mobile music, videos, games, ringtones, apps, and navigation, will supplement mobile access data services.

Global mobile carriers are poised to take advantage of consumers’ strong appetite for communications, information, and entertainment content on their mobile devices, but they must adapt to maximize these revenues in this hypercompetitive market.

Carriers must compete with their traditional peers as well as content owners, developers, and distributors, who can circumvent a carrier's ecosystem to offer content or services through app stores or on the mobile Internet. The old walled garden is porous due to disruptive forces such as Apple’s integrated business model. To stay relevant and dominant, carriers must focus on making their networks the most attractive option for content delivery and distribution.

Mobile carriers must focus on data services as smartphone sales exceed 215 million units in 2010

Mobile operators have to diversify their business plans, according to a new Parks Associates report, which finds voice ARPU declining by as much as 30% in some areas, while annual smartphone sales will exceed 215 million units in 2010, creating new opportunities for data services.

Mobile operators are looking to their data-based services for revenue generation and to offset losses in voice revenues. In North America, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and Rogers Wireless have started data-based initiatives including subsidization of smartphone handsets, branded mobile-app storefronts, wholesale connectivity to connected CE, and network upgrades. In Western Europe, Vodafone continues to push its mobile broadband offerings and recently launched a new suite of Internet services for mobile devices. These are all key monetization strategies as the market shifts away from voice services.

Mobile Services: Global Outlook (Second Edition), the new report finds voice ARPU in North America will decline by almost 30% from 2009 to 2014. Over the same timeframe, it will decline by 27% in Western Europe and 25% in Asia-Pacific.

Regulatory changes, increasing competition, and the struggle to attract and retain high-value subscribers conspired to drive down voice ARPU and revenues. In contrast, global smartphone shipments experienced a 32% year-over-year increase from 2008 to 2009, and they account for 16% of worldwide mobile phone shipments, compared with 11% in 2008.

For more information, visit http://www.parksassociates.com/mobile .

Sprinting ahead with WiMAX

Today, Sprint has launched its first official WiMAX network in Baltimore, MD. Initially, the service is rumored to offer 2-4 MBps speeds for about $30 per month plus the cost of USB modem (about $60). Sprint offers the service without contract and even offers flexible 1-day passes for $10, to try-before-you-buy experience.

If Sprint can successfully pull off the WiMAX launch in Baltimore, it would put the feather in its cap and help to silence the skeptics. What’s even more important, it will keep it from loosing the valuable 2.5GHz spectrum. Perhaps this is why the target city for the first major rollout is Baltimore, Washington DC’s (and FCC’s) back yard.

Baltimore has several other advantages as the launch city, positioning Sprint’s Xohm for success:
•Great scenario to build out a mobility play. A major argument against WiMAX is that it is a poor mobility solution. With WiMAX deployed in Baltimore, mere 40 miles away from Washington DC, deploying WiMAX in DC by the end of the year (as scheduled) would create a sandbox for Sprint to experiment with mobile WiMAX while lighting up another major metro market.

•Good balance of deployment cost and business mix. The cost of deployment in Baltimore would be lower than in many other major urban centers, such as Boston, New York or Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Baltimore has sufficient number of businesses and universities to provide Sprint with vital first customer wins.

•Baltimore is not a focus point for the 3G guys. Mobile broadband was born as a business service, so US major business center, such as New York, Boston and Philadelphia are well covered by 3G networks and have very high penetration of 3G services. They represent the bastions of entrenched 3G customers, vs. Baltimore, which poses a softer target, especially at the $30 price point.

Despite these advantages, Sprint’s team has a long, uphill battle ahead. The company has a cash reserve for about 12-18 months. The 3G carriers use their successful voice cash cows to fund buildouts of their 3G networks. Sprint doesn’t have that luxury. The company is cash-flow negative. It is rapidly burning through the cash it raised from its partners: Comcast, TWC, Brighthous, Intel and Google.

In addition to financial difficulties, at least for the moment, Sprint is at the technological disadvantage. The 3G carriers have older, 2/2.5G networks built out and most of their devices are backwards compatible. Thus when iPhone looses the 3G signal, it can continue using a slower, but reliable EDGE signal and stay connected. Sprint’s WiMAX doesn’t have that luxury. Unless a CE manufacturer embeds both a WiMAX chip and a cellular broadband chip into a device, once the customer is out of the WiMAX range, s/he is disconnected. Although in future CE devices, this flaw will likely be resolved by allowing consumer to fall back to 3G services when out of WiMAX range.

Sprint Disconnecting Customers Because of Excessive Customer Service Calls

Sprint is choosing to disconnect a group of wireless customers for excessive calls to the customer service, citing that Sprint is unable to serve them adequately. To view the letter sent to customers, click here: http://news.com.com/2300-1036_3-6195014-1.html