8/11/2019 HW-079505
2/4Win-Win/ JUN 2009
VOICEFROM OPERATORS
Vodafoneleading marketchange throughinnovation
The key drive for us is innovationat the Huawei 2009 Global
Analyst SummitAndy MacLeod, Director
of Vodafone Technology Networks, shared with us what Vodafone is
doing to innovate its way through
the current market and the current changes in the telecom
space.
By Andy MacLeod, Director of Vodafone Technology Networks
The changing market
oday Id like to discuss Vodafones strategy inthe context of the
changing market. Firstly, letstalk about macroeconomic market
trends. Notsurprisingly, the global economy, competition
and regulation are the three things that most concernVodafone
and the telecom industry as a whole.
Competition is pressuring all industries, and this
isparticularly true for the mobile sector as it
approachescommercial maturity. Te continual entry of new playersis
driving down prices, and the industry trend is headingtowards
bundled services and convergence. Competitionhas extended to
resale, which is now relatively ubiquitousand spans all markets via
Mobile Virtual NetworkOperators. Tis has been encouraged by the
currentregulations that have opened markets in a broad sense.
Tematurity of mobile markets has led to increased interestfrom
regulators, which in turn has created various pricepressures.
Customer divergence
Microeconomics concerns the behavior of customers.In its
infancy, the mobile industry adopted a genericapproach to
customers, which persisted until relativelyrecently. Now, the
diverged interests of business and
individual consumers are increasingly dictating
Vodafonescommercial strategy.
If we look back 5 or 6 years, consumers just wanteda SIM card.
Handset price, functionality, and dataconnection speeds led the
market. Te current situationis more complex. Media now forms a very
large part ofthe consumer proposition while for business
customers,effective integration is of much more concern.
Next let us consider the qualities of portability andmobility.
Individual consumers are concerned aboutportability and mobility
prompting questions such as:Will my phone fit in my jeans back
pocket? But forbusinesses, mobility centers more around the
question:Do the applications I need work on my mobile?
So there is a subtle difference about consumer interestin
battery and form factor versus, the way that the devicecan be used,
and integrated on the business side forbusiness customers.
Of course, quality underpins all aspects of the mobilefield.
When a mobile signal drops, individual userssimply move somewhere
else to obtain a signal. However,for business use, this is no
longer acceptable as mobileconnectivity now forms an integral part
of the officeenvironment. So Quality of Service, and all of
thoseattributes customers associate with the fixed
networkenterprise environment are starting to impinge
verysignificantly on customers expectations in the mobilespace.
Divergence is central to our strategic approach and
8/11/2019 HW-079505
4/4Win-Win/ JUN 2009
HSPA+ 16Mbps 64QAM and HSPA+ 20Mbps MIMOtechnology in January
and February 2009, and this haspaved the way for future commercial
deployment. Werepresently examining ways of configuring both
equipmentand physical positioning to reduce OPEX and CAPEX
through key infrastructure solutions such as Remote RadioHeads
and SingleRAN.
At the same time, Vodafone is playing a key rolein the ongoing
development of LE, which Id like todiscuss in terms of defining its
path and its commercialstructure. Crucial to Vodafones LE approach
is our closepartnership with China Mobile and Verizon, with
whom
weve already produced RFIs and set up LE field trials.Tis
partnership has helped solidify our direction notonly in terms of
the technical specifications of devices andchipsets, but also in
terms of volume aggregation through
which we can meaningfully penetrate the global market.
o ensure consistency throughout our solutions, weare driving a
single LE specification that will improveglobal roaming. An
important aspect of doing so involvesthe standardized FDD+DD
chipset solutions that weredeveloping to converge LE FDD and DD so
as todeliver a truly global mobile broadband solution.
Centers of excellence
A key difference in the way we previously operatedand our
present approach is our deeper involvement
with third parties. We utilize our partners capabilities,
applications, and ideas to maximize service quality for
ourcustomers. Over the past few years, weve partnered with
world leading vendors to establish numerous innovationcenters
with the aim of generating ideas for new productsand services. Weve
set up several of these with Huaweicovering mobile communications,
applications, corenetworks, and transport.
We work in a very methodical and structured way tomake sure that
we are tightly focused on driving our technicalcapabilities in the
right strategic and commercial direction.Tese joint innovation
centres work in a very structured andsimilar way. Tis forms an
integral part of our mechanism for
leveraging innovation; particularly in how we turn ideas
intooperational reality and commercial advantage.
o conclude, life is tough, but the ship is built well. Weare
addressing challenges through innovating, not onlyfrom a technical
perspective, but particularly around ouroperating model, and the
way we interact both internallyand externally with partners and
customers. By doing that,Vodafone will continue to shape the
industry around usand become even stronger and more
competitive.
Editor: Gao Xianrui [email protected]
wide range of passive and active sharing models spanningall our
markets, and doing so allows us to pass on resultingcost savings to
subscribers.
Our third innovation strategy covers outsourcedand managed
services in the form of turnkey build-
operate-transfer and total cost of ownership models
thatoptimally respond to our customers core services demands.
Weve designed these models to manage costs and ensurethat we
remain operationally focused on the activities thatdirectly deliver
the best service experience and benefits toour customers. Our solid
partnership approach has alsoextended to managed services embracing
areas such asspare parts management for network infrastructure.
Technological innovation
Vodafone is aggressively pushing the development ofthe current
3G technology to realize its full potential.
Were also driving the development of new technologiessuch as
femtocells and LE through a strong collaborativeapproach with
leading vendors and third parties.
3G Femtocells
Te first thing I want to talk about is femtocells. Weat Vodafone
look at femtocells in two ways. Tere are anumber of opportunities
that we see on the retail side.
We think its a very significant opportunity to provide
better service to customers, both the enterprise and
homecustomers in areas which could benefit from enhancedcoverage.
Tere are also capacity management benefits.Network data traffic is
increasing quickly, and this presentssome management challenges,
although data growthtends to be concentrated both in terms of user
numbersand location. However, we view this as an opportunityto
which we can apply a cohesive capacity managementstrategy,
particularly in mature markets where broadbandaccess is widely
available as a supplementary technology.
Femtocells respond to both consumer and capacitydemands and weve
proactively led its development and
drive for standardization through our position on theexecutive
board at the Femto Forum. During 2008 wecompleted internal and
external user trials, and launcheda commercial pilot in Spain using
Huaweis femtocellproducts.
3G vs. LTE
While there is a wave of excitement surrounding LE,we believe
that HSPA still has a wealth of potential andare as such exploring
ways to fully exploit our existing 3Gassets, especially in the data
field. We successfully trialed
