Boku Makes "In Store" Payment Move, Targets Carrier Partners

Boku, which traditionally has supported billing for virtual and digital goods sold to smart phone owners,  is launching a wholesale offering for carriers that will include in-store payments. 


The new service, called Boku Accounts, will allow operators to set up payment accounts for mobile users that will work in physical stores using MasterCard, NFC stickers and NFC-enabled phones. MasterCard is a major partner, allowing the service to be used anywhere MasterCard payments are possible. 


The move shows the increasing blurring of lines between "online payments" and "in store payments," as well as a growing porousness of the distinction between online and offline retail commerce and shopping. 


Telefonica recently has invested $5 million in Boku. 

Keeping Up with DOCSIS 3.0

A guest post by Ariel Caner, Product Marketing Manager, ECI Telecom

The demand for high-bandwidth, next-generation services has gone through the roof in recent years. We now live in a connected world, where consumers expect their voice, data and video needs to be satisfied anywhere at any time.

All this connectivity, however, requires bandwidth. And lots of it. The end users don’t really care (rightly so) about the underlying infrastructure that makes all this bandwidth possible. Whether it’s via copper, fiber or whatever, they just want to know the bandwidth is there when they need it – to stream a high def movie, download that mega PowerPoint file for work or make a Skype call to relatives across the pond.

For the service providers, though, it’s an entirely different matter. Their infrastructure is their lifeblood, and it must be capable of supporting the high-bandwidth, next-gen services that consumers want. Or else they risk churn.

In a perfect world, all operators would be able to deploy fiber end-to-end right now. After all, it enables the highest bandwidth possible and is future ready, with the ability to carry forthcoming connectivity technologies. But fiber isn’t ubiquitous just yet. The cost and time involved with deploying fiber access technologies such as GPON and point-to-point fiber access networks have slowed widespread adoption.

As operators grapple with the issue of how and when to make the move to fiber, they are in the tenuous position of having to balance customer demand for bandwidth and new services with their own need for return on investment. For many, what makes the best economic sense now is optimizing the copper infrastructure that’s already in place.  

The cable companies have found their answer in DOCSIS 3.0 (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification), a technology that enables speeds of 100 Mbps or more over existing HFC (hybrid fiber coaxial) networks. In an HFC network, optical fiber cable and coaxial cable are used in different parts of the infrastructure to carry broadband services. The advantage is that the desirable characteristics of fiber – high bandwidth and low interference – can be brought closer to homes and businesses without disturbing the coax cable that’s already installed in dwellings. These advances have greatly empowered the cablecos, enabling them to offer multiplay bundles that make available services including HDTV, high-speed internet and voice, thereby allowing them to maintain and even grow market share.

But what about the telcos? How can they keep pace with the cablecos and their DOCSIS 3.0?

In recent years, to increase the capacity and reach of their copper networks, the telcos have been utilizing access technologies such as VDSL (very-high-speed DSL) and its successor VDSL2. While VDSL2 can, in theory, deliver speeds up to 100 Mbps, it very often falls short due to something called crosstalk interference. This is a phenomenon whereby DSL lines become sensitive to the electromagnetic ‘noise’ that comes from adjacent copper pairs and, as a result, the signal that is being transmitted through the wire is degraded.

In an effort to solve to solve this limitation and find a way to extend the useful life of copper networks, a group of top DSL researchers formed the iSmart Consortium to conduct research in the field of dynamic spectrum management (DSM). The result of their work is a technology called ‘vectoring,’ or DSM Level 3. Vectoring is a novel VDSL2 technology that works by mitigating crosstalk interference to boost the speed and range of copper networks to near-fiber performance.

The advancements made possible by this innovative technology are impressive. For loop lengths shorter than 1500 meters, copper wire data rates are improved by 100%, to 50 Mbps or more, and the subscriber coverage area for premium services is expanded by 300%. And what’s more, on copper wire thicker than 0.4 mm, data rates can reach 100 Mbps and can further be doubled using bonding techniques.

What this means for the telcos is that they now have a level playing field with the cablecos. Like DOCSIS 3.0, vectoring opens up numerous application possibilities, many of which were previously unattainable with copper-based networks. Now, even the highest-speed broadband services, such as IPTV and telepresense, can be delivered cost effectively over copper, helping to reduce customer churn and increase ARPU.

For those telcos who are not yet ready to migrate to a full fiber network, vectoring is a viable and cost-effective option that’s sure to play an important role in high-speed broadband strategies throughout the next decade. 

Enterprise Tablet Adoption to Grow 48% a Year

Over the next five years, total shipments of tablet computers to enterprises around the world are expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 48 percent, with shipments rising from 13.6 million units in 2011 to 96.3 million units in 2016, according to Infinite Research.


In 2011, the Financial Services sector was the leading enterprise market adopter, purchasing 3.37 million tablets. That would not surprise anybody familiar with advanced technology adoption by businesses. The financial sector tends to lead, always.


Enterprise and business tablet adoption is occurring in numerous market verticals such as the Education, Healthcare, Retail, Industrial, Government, Financial Services, Hospitality, Technology, Legal, and Energy sectors, though.

Should Google Build a Chrome Phone?

Legendary technology investor Roger McNamee, of Elevation Partners, talks about Apple's future as a stock, what Google could do with Chrome, and why Twitter and Android are failing. He pulls no punches.

Worth watching

Verizon to Go "LTE-Only" for Smart Phones

Verizon Wireless will not sell any smart phones unless they run on its Long Term Evolution fourth generation network, starting in 2012, the company says. 


That suggests the next version of the Apple iPhone will run on the new LTE network. The LTE-only stance is part of an effort to get more customers loaded onto the LTE network. 


Apparently, only about five percent of Verizon Wireless customers have opted to buy and use smart phones running on the LTE network, so far. 

Cricket Signs with Clearwire for LTE

Cricket Communications will buy wholesale Long Term Evolution capacity from Clearwire. The five-year deal allows Cricket to supplement its own facilities-based LTE network.


Cricket currently plans to deploy LTE across approximately two thirds of its current network footprint over the next two to three years and to cover up to approximately 25 million potential customers with LTE network technology by the end of  2012. 


Clearwire expects to begin its LTE network deployment by the end of March 2012 and to have at 5,000 LTE cellular sites active by the middle of 2013. 


The deal is not unexpected. Few mobile service providers can afford to build everywhere, all at once. That's why roaming agreements exist. Also, right now, Clearwire is the only mobile service provider with a "wholesale-only" focus, making it an ideal partner, in terms of avoiding channel conflict. 


Up to this point, Sprint had been the only other service provider committed to using Clearwire Long Term Evolution facilities. In both cases, the firms are augmenting their own facilities. In some cases the objective is to ensure adequate bandwidth in high-demand markets. 


U.S. service providers have more incentive than most to offer LTE services now. At the end of September 2011, Verizon Wireless had more than 3.1 million LTE subscribers, representing  60 percent of the worldwide total. That is one sign that U.S. mobile service providers are adopting LTE fast.


According toTeleGeography, there were 39 LTE networks live worldwide by mid-November 2011, more than half of which were launched in 2011. According to 4G Americas that number has claimed to nearly 80 in early 2012. 


The number of LTE deployments will rise rapidly over the next two to three years, given that about 170 operators are already running trials, or have expressed interest in LTE.

TeleGeography suggests that there will be more than 400 million LTE mobile subscribers by the end of 2016, up from just nine million at the end of 2011. 

 

Will Banks Become Ad Networks?

Much seems to have changed over the last 12 months in the mobile payments business, one of the trends being the thinking about where the big revenue streams exist. For most in the mobile payments or mobile wallet spaces, the upside now is seen to be advertising and marketing, not transaction fees, though some participants remain focused on that part of the business.

Sopheap Lao, Mobexo CEO, runs a mobile payments company. For retailers, revenue, loyalty, lower collection costs are the value, he says. But “advertising is one of the revenue upsides,” he also says.

Talking about the ways bankers view mobile payments, former Bank of America executive John Thomas says bankers are not sure what the business model is for mobile payments and mobile commerce in general. Bankers are not sure whether mobile servicing, payments or advertising should be the primary focus.

On the other hand, there is a growing sense that marketing services, particularly advertising, represent the upside. It might be a startling notion, but there is a growing sense that, of the opportunities now available, the business with the highest profit margins is advertising.

Think of a bank’s network of online or mobile customers as a media audience. Then think about how a large bank could become an advertising network. That’s the potential opportunity. That isn’t to say the idea is universally welcomed.

Some bankers might resist the notion that the business consists of becoming “a big billboard.” Others might say there is nothing especially outlandish about that business model, especially if existing businesses start to experience severe gross revenue and profit margin issues.

“For a sample $100 in revenue, the return seems highest in advertising and credit operations, less so in rewards programs and lowest for debit operations,” says Thomas. That is one reason bankers Increasingly will be looking at advertising revenues as a growth opportunity.