Well this is my first post on a blog, at any time. I am hoping to continue this blog to chronicle my movements through the ever changing Telecoms sector in Africa. Having move into the Telecoms sector as a complete newbie the learning curve has been steep and it seems like in this industry with the pace of technology advancements learning is continuous.
So I trust that this blog will remain continuously interesting. The first 2 things I will talk about in this blog are 2 trips the first to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress (MWC) and the second a trip to Nairobi for the African CDMA Summit sponsored by Qualcomm.
First Mobile World Congress, a great event, a truely great turnout and some incredible information and products coming out of the event. In my opinion the major topics that will be changing and moving the Mobile World moving forward will be the App market, mobile operating systems and the embedded devices market.
There are a few interesting dynamics in the App market, who will take the major share of the pie? Apple, Android, Symbian, Blackberry and now the new Windows Mobile……. But this is the same battle ground for Mobile Operating systems, so watch this space. I think the battle for dominance moving forward is going to be an interesting one. Will Symbian keep there current position of dominance or will one of the new entrants be able to continually take market share away from the dominant players.
Embedded Devices are also going to an interesting market moving forward from the medical field to motor vehicles all connected and able to communicate with external sources. The possibilities are endless in this field.
The I also attended a few press conferences that were fascinating firstly,Skype, amazing a Telegeography research for 2009 states that Skype carried 12% (or there abouts from memory I don’t have the figures with me) os all international traffic. This is quite quite an incredible figure. And must put them up there with the largest carriers internationally.
Then another event I attended was with Motorola Network Solutions roundtable focussing on WIMAX, another incredibly interesting discussion around what is happening in the WIMAX space, from various market and various routes that are being taken worldwide. Like hearing Sean Bolger from Imagine Communications in Ireland and how they are rolling out a comprehensive WIMAX network and this is having a positive effect on data ARPU’s.
I could keep writing as so much happened at Mobile World Congress that I am sure a book could be written from the new information released. But to move on it was quite an interesting shift going from MWC organised by the GSMA to the African CDMA Summit.
The differences in the 2 technologies seem to be quite large however I do feel that both have there place in the market and personally (yes I new to the industry) feel that GSM and CDMA networks should coexist with each of the networks playing to there strengths. I will leave what these strengths are to those amongst us who are more technical.
As an example of this the Telkom Kenya model that was presented in Nairobi was fascinating, they are running Fixed Voice (fixed line), fixed data (adsl) and mobile voice and data both on CDMA and GSM networks a true showcase for using what is available to ensure that all segments and needs are covered in a given market. Why is this not more common was my questions? I did not receive any answer to this, the one resounding voice in the CDMA space in Africa was that GSM came first to Africa and CDMA has been playing catch up from Day 1.
This dynamic is very interesting and I think is another one that should be watched moving forward. Now I think the most controverisial thing I heard during my travels was the idea that LTE could bring about a convergance of sorts so that GSM and CDMA technologies themselves converge to a point where they would become indistinguishable from one another. A point to that I am again I hope the more technically savy than I will comment on. Is this a possibility to be honest I for sure do not know.
Well I think for my first entry it has been an interesting one and I will be endeavouring to bring you more as time goes by and I hope that you will take the time to comment on my thoughts so that we can start an interesting discussion around some of the points I have made.
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