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TELECOMS OPERATORS ROLE IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY DELIVERING THE DIGITAL FUTUREContents Introduction p 3 AT&T and the Connected Car: The AT&T Drive platform can support the infotainment services of the future p 4 Telecoms operators need to defend their core connectivity role p 6 Telehealth remains a small but interesting vertical for CSPs to target in the next 5 years p 8 Operators need to harness the skills of developers if they are to participate in communications innovation p10 Enabling new services: How telecoms operators can learn from Amazon p12 About Analysys Mason p14Telecoms operators are unclear what role they can and should play in the digital economy. This collection of articles explores some of Analysys Masons most recent thinking on the digital economy and the positioning of telecoms operators. A central message in these articles is that the traditional telecoms model of owning and controlling a service end to end is unlikely to be applicable to new services. Telecoms operators need to explore new ways of working that involve a greater degree of partnership and collaboration. All of this is not to say that radical transformation is required. The traditional core telecoms business will continue to be a solid, mostly profitable and gently growing market. If nothing else, most new digital economy services rely on connectivity bought from telecoms operators. However, the developments in the digital economy provide the opportunity for telecoms operators to play a greater role than connectivity alone. The articles in this report are: Telecoms operators need to defend their core connectivity role. In the opening essay, I explain why established operators should not ignore their core connectivity role. The emergence of LPWA networks in the past year has been an extremely hot topic, and an area that telecoms operators are in danger of losing to new, more energetic startups. AT&T and the connected car: The AT&T Drive platform can support the infotainment services of the future. In this article, Morgan Mullooly looks at how AT&T is enhancing its connected car solution by providing a platform of services to car companies. If successful, this platform will help AT&T differentiate its offering from others that provide connectivity only, help defend the connectivity revenue and, possibly, open new revenue opportunities. Telehealth remains a small but interesting vertical for CSPs to target in the next 5 years. Connected healthcare is a massive market but from connectivity revenue alone, the opportunity is limited. Telecoms operators will need to do more than just offer connectivity. Based on our recent report looking at this topic, Michele MacKenzie outlines how operators have been developing healthcare platforms, which will allow them to play a key role in the provision of new solutions. Operators need to harness the skills of developers if they are to participate in communications innovation. Innovation in voice and messaging is being driven not by the established telecoms market but by small start-ups and developers. Stephen Sale argues that, if it is to affect future innovation, the telecoms sector must do a better job of working with developers. Enabling new services: How telecoms operators can learn from Amazon. In his essay, Enrique Velasco-Castillo examines how Amazon has developed its business from a linear model controlled end to end (i.e. selling books) to a much more collaborative model. Based on his research, Enrique outlines the key lessons telecoms operators can learn from Amazon. As the market develops and thinking moves on, we will be updating our research as part of our programmes exploring the digital economy and telecoms operator roles in these markets. We hope you enjoy reading these articles and welcome your comments or feedback. 3 The development of the digital economy will create new business and revenue-generating opportunities, almost all involving connectivity in one form or another. Introduction TOM REBBECK Research Director, Digital Economy tom.rebbeckanalysysmasonConnectivity is and is likely to remain central to telecoms operators digital economy efforts. Digital economy services can be used to defend existing connectivity revenues (e.g smart homes services being used to reduce broadband churn), to create new connectivity opportunities (e.g. connected car) and connectivity itself can be a base on which to develop other revenue generating opportunities (e.g. telehealth). Without connectivity, telecoms operators will find it much harder to justify their role. However, with the emergence of new networks using unlicensed spectrum (e.g. SIGFOX, Ingenu), established players are seeing their position under threat. As can be seen below in Figure 1, IoT and other digital economy services will need a range of different wide area connectivity solutions to meet different use cases. At one extreme, smartphones, connected cars and other services will require ever higher bandwidths. The position of established operators here seems secure as barriers to entry are so high new entrants would need to invest billions of dollars in networks and spectrum to compete. At the other extreme, we are seeing many emerging use cases for smart city and other IoT applications that only require low throughput and no guaranteed service levels. Barriers to entry are far lower networks need fewer base stations and use unlicensed spectrum. In between, demand exists for services that require some level of service quality and higher (but not high) throughput. As with the higher speed services, there are no immediate threats to established operators in providing these services. Speed 1Mbit/s+ 100kbit/s 10kbit/s Example technology 4G 2G, LTE-M LoRa, SIGFOX, NB-IoT Spectrum Example use cases Licenced Licenced Licenced or unlicenced Smart phone Connected car Smart grid Smart watch CCTV High value object tracking Smart parking Smart street lights Low value object tracking Smart meter 002 00023 FIGURE 1: MAPPING OF USE CASES AND NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES SOURCE: ANALYSYS MASON, 2016 Telecoms operators need to defend their core connectivity role TOM REBBECK Head of Custom ResearchEstablished operators should not ignore their core connectivity role. The emergence of LPWA networks in the past year has been an extremely hot topic, and an area that telecoms operators are in danger of losing to new, more energetic startups. ” “ 4This need for multiple networks creates challenges for established telecoms operators as it represents a break from the existing evolution path of mobile technologies (that is, the progression through 2G, 3G and 4G). Rather than focus on ever higher speeds, the new devices need a new tradeoff between bandwidth, battery life and propagation. For an industry fixated by the needs of the handset since its creation, this will require an adjustment in thinking. The second, and potentially greater challenge for established operators is the threat from new entrant operators. While many established operators have been slow to enter this market, smaller and more agile start-up companies, such as SIGFOX (France) and Telensa (UK) have been building networks and gaining customers. The outcome for this market remains uncertain and it is difficult to say how this market will develop. Below, in Figure 2, we outline what we see as the main potential scenarios for these LPWA networks. As can be seen, we believe that the most likely outcome is that the traditional model, with established operators using licenced spectrum, prevails. However, and this is the key point, unlike for 4G, where the role of the traditional players was not under question, there remains a substantial possibility that other players and other spectrum options will emerge dominant. The digital economy presents many interesting and exciting opportunities for the telecoms sector. However, just as new technologies will disrupt other sectors the telecoms sector itself risks disruption if it is not able to defend its core service, connectivity. Scenario Description Drivers for this scenario Barriers to this scenario Likelihood Fragmentation No technology standard gains primacy. Multiple standards coexist Continuation of current situation Use cases that require scale would not emerge Low Startups win One or two emerging companies like Ingenu, SIGFOX dominate the market and those using LoRa? E.g. LACE? Startups are focused and aggressively chasing this opportunity Startups are already advanced on established operators Startups lack the resources and routes to market of established operators Low Established operators with unlicensed spectrum win Established telecoms operators use technol- ogy such as LoRa to develop networks LoRa gaining traction with established operators Ecosystems around unlicensed spectrum are developing fast Unlicensed spectrum may not be suitable to all use cases Medium NB-IoT dominates Established operators using licenced spectrum control this market Strong support from tradi- tional vendors Support from some major operators (e.g. Vodafone) Late to market. Other solutions will have at least a years head start Medium-High. Probably the most likely scenario in the longer term FIGURE 2: POTENTIAL SCENARIOS FOR LPWA NETWORKS SOURCE: ANALYSYS MASON, 2016 5 Questions? Please feel free to contact Tom Rebbeck, Research Director, at tom.rebbeckanalysysmason AT&T is enhancing its connected car solution by providing a platform of services to car companies. If successful, this platform will help AT&T differentiate its offering from others that provide connectivity only, help defend the connectivity revenues and, possibly, open new revenue opportunities. ” “ The connected car is expected to be one of the largest M2M opportunities for telecoms operators. The challenge for operators is how to move beyond connectivity revenue and win a significant share of the value of connected car services. AT&Ts response to this has been to develop its AT&T Drive platform, which has the potential to be a marketplace for those involved in the connected car infotainment services market both connected car suppliers (technology vendors and application developers) and automotive OEMs (and their customers). AT&Ts ability to extend its automotive connectivity deals and engage the interest of app and solution developers will be crucial to the success of its connected car strategy. AT&T IS ALREADY THE LEADING PROVIDER OF CONNECTIVITY TO CARS Analysys Mason estimates that new passenger car sales will grow at a CAGR of 5.5% worldwide between 2015 and 2020. By 2019, we expect that the majority of cars produced will be connected. This will be a boon for telecoms operators, at a time when revenues from other services are flat or in decline. AT&T has been busily diversifying its customer base by building Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for various vertical markets including the automotive industry. Indeed, it is already the worlds leading embedded connectivity service provider for the automotive sector. The carrier added 1 million connected cars to its network in 2Q 2015 (see Figure 1). This growth outstripped handset subscriber growth and brought the total number of vehicles that AT&T supports with embedded connectivity to 4.8 million. To protect itself in the long term, and provide services that offer greater differentiation that connectivity alone AT&T is eager to become a key player in the connected car value chain. It aims to achieve this by developing AT&T Drive, a difficult-to-replicate service for OEMs in the form of a cloud-based platform which can support OEMs proprietary infotainment systems. AT&T IS DEVELOPING AN ECOSYSTEM OF PARTNERS AND DEVELOPERS AROUND ITS AT&T DRIVE PLATFORM AT&T Drive brings together a disparate set of technology partners (such as Ericsson, Jasper, Qualcomm and VoiceBox) with unique competencies such as billing and partnership management, speech recognition and natural-language understanding (see Figure 2). This platform of platforms allows OEMs and third-party developers to focus on what they do best building vehicles and apps, respectively. AT&T DRIVE CAN ADD RICHNESS TO OEMS INFOTAINMENT SYSTEMS IN THE USA AND BEYOND AT&Ts connected car services are modular, meaning that automotive OEMs can start off by using the carriers managed connectivity services, and then later extend this to include the infotainment capabilities enabled by the AT&T Drive platform. In countries where AT&T does not have local network coverage, it has the ability to contract a partner carrier to provide local connectivity for its OEMs and still provide access to the cloud-based AT&T Drive platform to power the OEMs infotainment systems. This means that OEMs can use the same infotainment approach in countries other than the USA. AT&T DRIVE WILL COMPETE ALONGSIDE OTT SERVICES FROM OTHER PLAYERS STRIVING FOR DOMINANCE IN THE CONNECTED CAR VALUE CHAIN Figure 3 lists some of the options considered by automotive OEMs for connected car services (although it should be noted that this is a simplified list, as other options are possible). AT&T Drive is aiming to help automotive OEMs pursue the most valuable approach, Option 1. By offering services to a large number of automotive OEMs, AT&T should be in a better position to attract developers than automotive OEMs who act independently, and AT&T can spread the costs of developing the Drive service across a larger base. Reseller Connected devices - other Connected devices - cars Branded consumer 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 Net adds (thousand) -95 448 741 1,000 6 AT&T and the connected car: The AT&T Drive platform can support the infotainment services of the future MORGAN MULLOOLY Analyst FIGURE 1: NET SUBSCRIBER ADDITIONS, AT&T MOBILITY SOURCE: ANALYSYS MASON, 2016 While the AT&T Drive platform is designed to help automotive OEMs to define the native infotainment experience, a number of other OTT platforms are also vying for dominance in the provision of connected car infotainment. These platforms include Apple CarPlay, the Connected Car Consortiums MirrorLink and Googles Android Auto. These OTT platforms will exist in parallel with the native infotainment experience (see Figure 3, which describes how these OTT platforms can fit into the infotainment strategies of automotive OEMs). Typically, they synchronise smartphone apps and content to vehicle infotainment systems, and enable vehicles to piggyback on smartphone- ba
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