Tellabs Presents Mobile Commerce, Part 3: How To Make Mcommerce Work

Podcast Transcript Mobile Commerce: Episode 3: How to Make mCommerce Work Gabriel Brown, chief analyst, Unstrung Insider — London: Many of the critical pieces—high-speed data networks, sophisticated devices and billions of mobile phone users—are in place, setting the stage for some lucrative mobile commerce applications. But customers will only want to use these applications if operators can support the speed, reliability and security necessary to deliver high-quality services consumers will want to use over and over again. Operators cannot afford to underestimate the network transformation required to make mobile commerce a reality. Stu Benington, Tellabs, director, portfolio marketing: So ultimately the take-up of mobile commerce will be defined by what the end user experiences, and that can really be divided into three categories. Number 1 is, does the bandwidth in the mobile environment match what they see on the wired side? Number 2 is, does the reliability of the network satisfy what the end users require? And then Number 3 is, does the latency of the network—is it small enough that the end users don’t get frustrated by trying to engage these transactions over the mobile network? Jonathan MacDonald, UK Sales, Blyk — London: For me personally, speed is a massive concern in connection speed just due to the fact that you pay for the data. So the quicker that you can get something, usually the less you pay. And seeing as one of the barriers to market I find is price, then speed is a huge concern.

more data oriented with their usage of the mobile environment, but also the network itself needs to accommodate high bandwidth, and not just bandwidth in general; it’s fine-grained bandwidth that involves several thousand individual transactions simultaneously. Christopher Billich, Head of Development for Infinita — Tokyo: If it gets faster, if the display gets bigger, that would be great, and actually I think we’re getting close to the point in Japan where that kind of shopping experience on the phone is, you know, fast enough—3.6 M-bit is pretty fast. You know, that’s like a slow DSL line in most parts of the world, which is perfectly fine for mobile commerce. Helen Keegan, founder of Beep Marketing — London: I think they should make data rates cheap for pay-as-you-go customers and they should make data speeds more reliable across the country as you’re moving. It’s all right when you’re in a fixed spot and you’ve found that you’ve got the connection, but in busy cities like London, sometimes the connection can be flaky because so many people are logging on at the same time.

Gabriel Brown: In addition, emerging applications like mobile commerce will only become more bandwidth-intensive as consumers come to expect the same graphical user interfaces and video features they’re currently used to with their computers.

Stu Benington: Security is one of the things that’s top of mind when end users engage in mobile commerce. And one of the things that’s not always obvious is the linkage between security and the reliability of the network. So, for example, if you’re engaging in secure transactions over a network, you don’t want to have to keep retransmitting because the network isn’t reliable, because every time you retransmit, that’s a chance for someone else to get your secure information. So the more reliable the network is, the more it’ll stimulate mobile commerce as people move forward and become comfortable with these transactions.

Stu Benington: One of the things that mobile commerce drives is the need for high bandwidth in the network, because the end users are becoming more and

Jonathan MacDonald: My biggest issue has been in connection. So when I’ve bought something from a site like Game Loft, for instance, or a mobile games

Mobile Commerce Driving Change in Mobile Backhaul provider, sometimes the Internet connection, the WAP connection is robust enough for the game to come along and sometimes it’s not. And if it’s not, trying to reconnect with the same session in place—i.e., my money’s already changed hands—whereas my product or service is incredibly problematic. And a lot of those companies don’t necessarily have the customer support back end. Phillip Maurer, technical architect, Metro International — London: I find in general the mobile networks here to be less reliable. I mean, just in a sense that when I try to make a call from my office, which is not that far away from Buckingham Palace, I have terrible reception. Where I used to live, in Finland, it was absolutely reliable all the time. And so I think the impression I had of the network was different. Gabriel Brown: On top of these considerations, there is a host of technology changes being implemented in the network infrastructure. Network backhaul, which tends to be based on TDM technology, is moving towards ATM or IP Ethernet and MPLS. The widespread and growing usage of data services is the primary driver behind this evolution, and operators have to find ways to embrace these more efficient technologies without risking their existing services based on older technologies such as ATM. Chris Evarts, Tellabs Wireless Technology Specialist: Another evolution that’s going on is the backhaul network. It has to evolve as well, because it’s fundamentally the link between that radio network and the core applications that are taking place. So that migration is one where the backhaul has to increase its capacity. It has to be able to now understand the level of priority of the transactions that are occurring. Stu Benington: One of the key success factors for mobile commerce is the ability for the network to minimize latency of these transactions. As users attempt to

Mobile Commerce Driving Change in Mobile Backhaul get beyond any emotional concerns they have about engaging in secure transactions, latency goes a long way, because it gives them a comfort that their transaction is getting through appropriately. It’s similar to a webpage user. There’s about an eight-second threshold for webpage users that they’ll either refresh or go to a different webpage if it’s beyond eight seconds. That requirement’s going to be even tighter in a mobile commerce environment because of this emotional concern that users have. Professor Adam Greenfield, New York University — New York: If you’re interrupted constantly by these clumsy, you know, interfaces that say things like, ‘Preparing to stand by,’ whatever that means, you know, I think the cause is sunk. Andrew Shuttleworth, editor of Living in Japan Guide, co-organizer at tokyo2point0 — Tokyo: Sometimes the mobile browser, you can’t finish up your transaction — the Submit button doesn’t work or something. So more than anything I think it’s dealing with the frustrations and just getting to a stage where there really is no difference between mobile web and desktop web.

Chris Evarts: I believe the backhaul network has to become more intelligent, and I think the technology is there that that intelligence can be applied to the backhaul network in an effective way using off-the-shelf technologies like MPLS, standard QoS mechanisms. But those QoS mechanisms need to be done in such a way that you do guarantee the service, that you can guarantee that this m-commerce traffic will get through, this voice traffic will get through. And you need to have the mechanisms in place for redundancy so that if a primary path fails and you have a secondary path, you can go to that secondary path and use it, and that it has value to you. Stu Benington: The backhaul component of mobile networks is really where the biggest challenges to mobile commerce lie, and in that regard Ethernet pseudowires are the ideal technology to use. Ethernet is a great technology for increasing bandwidth, for increasing network scalability, but it needs to be coupled with pseudowire technology to address the latency issue, to address the security and the reliability necessary to give end users the right experience that

gets them over this emotional comfort factor and can really start to stimulate the growth in mobile commerce applications as these operators move forward. John Gauntt, senior analyst, eMarketer: End users have the ultimate vote. They can decide whether to use m-commerce or not. So you can’t escape the fact there’s going to be a lot of heavy lifting and significant investment, not simply in money, but in time and energy and organization of will, to market the value proposition and listen back to what end users are saying that they really want for m-commerce to take off. Gabriel Brown: There’s no doubt growth in mobile commerce is coming like an avalanche. Billions in revenues are there for the taking, but only if operators carefully plan their strategies today. Consumers will be soured if they suffer a poor experience due to slow, delayed or unreliable transactions. Operators must continue to add bandwidth and ensure quality of service as m-commerce grows and has a significant impact on the network.

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