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FIBRE TO THE HOME

As part of our work with the FTTH Council Europe, we have written some chapters for their new Business Guide. The following chapter is a more detailed look at how to assess market opportunities. The title is Understanding the Market, Assessing the Opportunity For a New Fibre Business. It also talks about other technologies and is relevant for xDSL, WiMAX, etc. We hope you enjoy it.

You can find our latest newsletter titled, 'The 9 Biggest Mistakes in FTTH' here. There are plenty of mistakes that can be made in implementing an FTTH business but we think we've rounded up some of the worst offenders.

We have an interesting thought piece here about reducing the cost of FTTH deployments through government action. We have done extensive work on the costs of national and city deployments and how to reduce the cost by choosing the right cities and areas to cover.

We have held a number of workshops on fibre, WiMAX and broadband business modelling recently for operators and at events like the FTTH Conference in Lisbon. If you want to get copies of these please contact richard@venturateam.com

MOBILE

LTE

Title: HSPA / LTE Business Case: Modelling approach to UK broadband spectrum options

Ventura addresses the question of whether it makes sense for legacy 900GSM operators in the UK to bid on 800MHz spectrum in view of a proposed sub-1GHz cap on spectrum. Using our suite of wireless technology models, we calculate under different network clutter types for Greater London and Cambridgeshire the conditions under which it would make sense to deploy LTE in 2.6GHz, 800MHz, or persist with HSPA. Our conclusions validate anecdotal evidence that for legacy 900GSM MNO's, there is little to be gained from bidding on 800MHz unless to achieve deep rural coverage.

Ventura has a comprehensive suite of network technology models that are able to calculate network CAPEX and OPEX for GSM, UMTS/HSPA, LTE and WiMAX for any spectrum allocation at any spectrum band. The suite has been designed with CTO technology selection decisions in mind and allows for multi-technology comparisons - quick and simple it isolates the major cost drivers from the perspective of the technology executive. The model outputs cumulative CAPEX, network cost/GB and customer profitability. Used in conjunction with our revenue and market share model, the combined suite can be used to undertake detailed business planning and valuation.

Download the paper here.

Title: Has Hi3G played a shrewd hand in the recent Danish auctions? Unpaired vs. Paired Spectrum Analysis

Prompted by the substantially lower price paid by Hi3G for its combined spectrum block of 2x10MHz and 1x25MHz in the recent Danish 2.5GHz spectrum auctions (May 2010), Ventura was intrigued to understand the reasoning which lead the other incumbents paying more than 47-times for larger blocks of paired spectrum. In this short piece, Ventura has compared the desirability of paired and unpaired spectrum from the perspective of Hi3G, which paid around 950k Euros and TDC, which successfully bid for 2x20MHz and paid around 44 million Euro.

Ventura has developed a technology model to assist with technology trade-off analysis, which is able to compare the cost structures for any 3GPP, or WiMAX technology for any spectrum allocation. This is part of a more comprehensive broadband business planning tool.

It is our hypothesis that mobile operators that deploy TD-LTE in unpaired spectrum to service the large screen (USB Dongle) market can do so more efficiently compared to mobile operators limited to paired spectrum, because of the spectral efficiency of unpaired technologies. Further, this means less of the more valuable paired spectrum is required to service the more profitable Smart Phone data market. It is our view that this strategy can lead to lower upfront infrastructure costs and hedge for higher than expected growth in data traffic, which would result in an explosion in capacity sites for an operator limited to paired spectrum.

Download the paper here.

Title: Introducing Ventura & Arieso's Active Network Sharing Service Solution

Ventura Team has partnered with leading radio optimisation company Arieso to deliver an end-to-end active and passive network share solution. Our service solution has been tried and tested having successfully consolidated over 22,000 sites between AT&T and Cingular in the USA. Our solution addresses the main concern of CTO's - how to accurately justify the commercial case for active network sharing and maintain quality of service during implementation. Used to either set major course directions, or execute implementation of active network sharing, the Ventura partnership with Arieso ensures that active networks are optimised simultaneously on cost, coverage and quality of service.

Download document here.

EMBEDDED MOBILE

In 2008, Ventura Team worked with the GSMA on a market development strategy for an emerging category of devices and services – Embedded Mobile. The study identified the potential for significant new opportunities although there are considerable hurdles to overcome in the form of value chain and application fragmentation. The recommended market development strategy included a plan to move beyond traditional M2M segments and into new areas such as connected consumer electronics, health care, transport and smart utilities. A summary of the key findings and proposed GSMA strategy can be found here.

This paper, developed with the Institute for Alternative Futures, considers possible operating scenarios along with the threats and opportunities for the health care and mobile industries. Our market analysis and MNO strategy recommendations featured as the opening presentation at the Telco 2.0 Americas event in December 2009.

In September 2009, the Korean Telecommunications Operators Association (KOTA) invited us to speak at a work shop on the embedded mobile market and opportunity for data MVNOs. This presentation introduces the embedded mobile market and explores MVNO-like opportunities for non-mobile companies.