Four New Year’s Resolutions For Enterprise Mobility | The Enterprise Mobility Forum

by Philippe Winthrop

Welcome to 2011. I love this time of year because it gives us the opportunity to look back at all the great things we accomplished in the past year…and think about what we want to accomplish in the coming year. The downside of all this is that you may want to think about some new year’s resolutions. It could be exercising more, eating better, or doing a better job of staying in touch with the ones who are dear to you.

Frankly, I know I am not good at keeping my new year’s resolutions, so I typically don’t try to make any that are “personal.” However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t new year’s resolutions we can make for work that may hopefully be easier to keep. As you’re coming up with your own to-do list for 2011, let me offer four simple suggestions as it pertains to your organization’s enterprise mobility initiatives. 1) Count, 2) Plan, 3) Control, and 4) Measure.

1.Count!!! Technically, that should be “be aware of the things you may not be aware of.” I’m talking about the arsenal of mobile devices and plans that the employees at your workplace are using. Just a couple of years ago, the task was already a challenge when companies were providing their employees cell phones. Now it’s even more complicated – and expensive – with the proliferation of smartphones and smartpads. This isn’t just a question of knowing who has what, but are these people getting the most appropriate devices and plans for their needs? You need tools to be aware of the devices that are accessing your network, as well as better understand how much each employee is using their mobile devices. Is their rate plan too high or too low for their use? Sure, you might think this is a moot point if your employees are using devices that they brought to the workplace, but believe me, you still need to know what they are using and more importantly, what they are accessing. Don’t forget the old axiom: “Knowledge is Power.” To empower yourself in the world of enterprise mobility, you need to have visibility on ALL the mobile devices that are going to have a financial or technological impact on your organization.

2.Plan!!! Mobility in the 2011 workplace is now all about the applications that people can use on their mobile devices. Notice how I didn’t just say employees. Organizations are increasingly realizing that mobile applications can provide tremendous benefits to not only employees, but partners and customers. So what are your business objectives? Who are the constituents (internal and external) needed to make the project a success? What operating systems are you going to support? What form factors are the applications targeted for? How are you going to deploy the application? What about security? Who is going to be responsible for supporting the users of these applications? What are the metrics that you are going to use to determine whether the project is a success? How are you going to measure all these criteria? Is your head spinning yet (mine is)? Once you have gathered those metrics, how are you going to get them into a review cycle to develop the next version of the application?

3.Control! I almost feel like Yoda talking to Luke Skywalker. You need to have control on your mobility initiatives. Whether it’s how you procure your workforce’s devices, how you provision them, how you manage and secure them or how you retire and/or replace them…you need to have control. It doesn’t matter who bought the device, you still need to have control. Why? Because it doesn’t really matter anymore who bought the mobile device. If someone is going to be accessing information on your corporate network, it’s indisputably YOUR information and YOUR data. You need to make sure you have the right tools in place to ensure that you can control how your increasingly mobile workforce is accessing your company’s information.

4.Measure!!! I can’t stress this one enough. You have to monitor and measure everything you are doing in your mobility deployments. Whether it’s devices or applications (regardless of who they are targeted to), you need to make sure you can track progress in your mobility initiatives. Regardless of your role and responsibility within your organization, your CFO will want to be reassured that your investments in mobility are not wasteful and that there are real (in)tangible benefits from the investments. Are you ready to show the value of what you’re working on?

So there you have it. Four simple suggestions for new year’s enterprise mobility resolutions. Now granted, I fully realize these are easier said than done, but believe me, by the time you look back at 2011, you’ll be happy you kept these. What are your new year’s enterprise mobility resolutions?

What unbundling means for service providers and consumers

Drive around SA city streets and you’ll soon notice Telkom’s green and blue distribution cabinets, like the one pictured above near TechCentral’s offices in Johannesburg, writes Candice Jones.

Soon distribution cabinets of various colours could be popping up next to Telkom’s street boxes, thanks to local-loop unbundling. And their arrival could herald a steep reduction in fixed-line broadband costs for consumers and businesses.

Telkom’s distribution boxes, many of which now have fibre-optic cables running into them, are often the place where the company provides consumers with access to its digital subscriber lines, the broadband links over the copper cables that run into people’s homes.

The Internet market has long been anxious to see the local loop, the so-called last mile of copper cables that connects consumers and small businesses to Telkom’s network, unbundled.

This dream could be realised before the year is over, and rival operators and Internet service providers have to start thinking now about how they will gain access to this network to provide fixed-line broadband directly to consumers.

Worldwide, local-loop unbundling has boosted competition among Internet providers, driving down prices and paving the way for new services.

Greg Massel, CEO of alternative operator Switch Telecom, says one of the requirements is that Telkom allows competitors to “co-locate” telecommunications equipment in Telkom’s exchanges – and, closer to homes, in distribution cabinets — so they can gain direct access and provide onward connectivity over their own backhaul links.

Getting the equipment into these facilities is a big exercise, even if Internet service providers only want to serve niche areas rather than offering broadband services nationally.

“Costs will vary depending on the coverage area, the equipment used and the capacity deployed, but I think it’s safe to say the kind of investment required will limit the direct benefits of unbundling to larger service providers,” says Massel.

But he says smaller service providers will have more options when looking for alternative wholesale suppliers, which may help drive down prices.

For many local Internet providers, backhaul will be a key consideration. Web Africa CEO Matthew Tagg says getting fibre to Telkom’s facilities will be the biggest factor influencing how successful unbundling will be.

However, Tagg says alternative fibre network suppliers like Dark Fibre Africa have begun providing backhaul links, which should help keep prices down.

The process becomes complicated in areas where Telkom doesn’t provide broadband access over copper from its traditional telephone exchanges, but rather from the distribution cabinets along city streets.

In recent years, Telkom has actively laid fibre closer to people’s homes, running into distribution cabinets, and shortening the distance between consumers and high-speed fibre backhaul. Shortening the local loop in this way has allowed Telkom to offer higher-speed broadband, up to 10Mbit/s in some areas that are served by Metro Ethernet technology.

But it also means Internet service providers have to start thinking about deploying their equipment in those boxes, or even building their own, says Tagg. The problem is there isn’t much space in Telkom’s cabinets, so alternative providers will have to consider building their own cabinets nearby.

There have been suggestions that Telkom could offer what is called “bit-stream unbundling”, where it provides all the equipment other service providers need to connect customers. In this scenario, service providers won’t need to provide their own facilities in the exchanges or build their own distribution cabinets.

“The industry should have had bit-stream access from when Telkom first introduced digital subscriber lines,” says Tagg.

He says to propose bit-stream access as an alternative to full unbundling is “a big cop-out”. “It will do very little to drive competition or produce real change for customers.”

Tagg says full unbundling has been “very successful in Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand”. Increases in speeds and broadband quality in those countries can be directly attributed to the increase in competition brought on by unbundling.

“We are already playing catch-up with countries like Australia. By my estimation we about seven or eight years behind,” says Tagg.

Though smaller operators are looking forward to unbundling, larger players are wary of committing themselves to exactly what will be needed to take advantage of the process.

MWeb CEO Rudi Jansen says what will be required will depend to a large extent on what the regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), stipulates must be unbundled.

The authority last week revealed, in an exclusive interview with TechCentral, that it hopes facilities-leasing regulations will be enough to force Telkom to provide competing operators access to the local loop.

In terms of the Electronic Communications Act, the local loop is considered an “essential facility” since it is a key aspect of the telecoms environment and operators are now able to demand access from Telkom.

However, Jansen says facilities leasing is only a portion of unbundling and will only take the process so far.

“At the end of the day we are all in the hands of what Icasa decides and how much Telkom would like to open up and under what conditions it will allow us into their facilities,” he says.

“We need naked digital subscriber lines, where telephone and broadband line rental is split and not a situation where one is conditional on the other,” Jansen says. “More exchanges need to be upgraded to be broadband-capable and investments need to be made in access speeds,” he says.

However, he says Icasa is not entirely on the wrong track. “For now, I think the regulator must go for the easy wins that will give immediate benefits to all.”

Internet Solutions MD Derek Wilcocks says the best bet for local-loop unbundling is for the country to impose on Telkom what UK regulator Ofcom imposed on Britain’s incumbent fixed-line operator, BT Group.

BT spun off its local loop into a separate, independent company called Openreach, which manages, maintains upgrades and leases the local loop to competing operators, including BT itself, and does it in a way that is transparent to all market players.

“Creating a wholesale, transparent spin-off would be the most practical short-term solution for getting things done,” says Wilcocks.

However, he says Telkom is preparing new products that indicate it is taking unbundling seriously. “For example, it is offering aggregated capacity at the larger exchanges to competing providers, instead of charging for every circuit in that exchange.”

Whether Internet service providers will gain access to the local loop this year remains unclear. However, most industry players are hoping Telkom will meet the November deadline set by communications minister Roy Padayachie.

Hosted PBX from Vox Orion // MyBroadband

Staff Writer | 12 January, 2011

Vox Orion has launched a hosted PBX service, Verto, which promises to bring all the benefits of hosted services to South Africa’s corporate telephony market

“Verto takes the traditional PBX out of the box and puts all that intelligence into the network,” says Vox Orion MD Jacques du Toit. “It’s based on robust and reliable commercial open source technology that’s already supporting more than 550,000 extensions.”

Du Toit says Verto is a natural progression of the Vox Telecom group’s strategy to become a complete alternative telecommunications provider.

“It’s a perfect fit with our Cristal Vox converged voice and data network, and our customers have responded with enthusiasm to this development of our managed services.”

Verto is particularly attractive, adds Du Toit, because of the low risk to the client. “Provided we have conducted a full LAN audit to ensure that the client’s network is voice-ready, we guarantee that if they are not happy with the quality of the service they can cancel at any time."

The basic Verto feature set for Level 1 users includes conference calling, call forwarding, call waiting, alerts, a ‘do not disturb’ setting, dial-by-name functionality, redials, return calls and pick up groups. Level 2 users also get access to voicemail, voicemail to email conversion, call recording, hunt and page groups, call screening and summary call histories.

Verto can also integrate easily with external applications including voice loggers, predictive diallers and telephone management systems.

“It combines all the functionality of a traditional PBX and an advanced IP telephony platform,” says Du Toit. “Verto is future-proof as the software is constantly being upgraded and developed to include new technology developments.”

Comms Cloud moving from concept to business reality

It is with great excitement that I watch our new telecoms concept, Comms Cloud Managed Infrastructure Services, move towards becoming a reality.

Next week sees our branding and corporate identity being unveiled to us for the first time and I have started pitching “next generation” ideas to customers that I have long standing relationships with.

What is fascinating for me is the endless opportunity for optimisation, technology upgrades and the resultant business benefits [savings included] that are on table for businesses today. Disruptive technologies rule!

Watch this space carefully; we are going to offer clients a viable and exciting new offering within the next few months.

Peter Walsh
Cape Town
January 2011

ICASA commits to local loop deadline

By Leigh-Ann Francis
Johannesburg, 6 Jan 2011

This is despite Telkom's warning that the deadline is unrealistic, given the regulatory challenges and lack of clarity holding back the process.

However, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) maintains the regulatory process for ensuring the LLU implementation will unfold during the course of 2011, through a full public consultation process, to iron out any “uncertainty”.

The last mile, or local loop, is the copper link between the end-user and Telkom's network, and is currently owned by Telkom.

The rationale behind LLU is to foster competition and reduce telecommunications costs by eliminating large investments by competitors to build their own infrastructure for last mile connectivity.

Telkom, a key player in the process, argues that a number of regulatory issues need to be clarified before the unbundling can get under way. However, ICASA says it is aware of the issues raised by the incumbent and remains confident of the November deadline.

Clarification

The operator's main concern lies in the lack of clarification as to whether the local loop can be considered an essential facility.

“Notwithstanding that the Electronic Communications (EC) Act includes local loops in the indicative list of potential essential facilities, it is arguable whether the local loop is indeed an essential facility,” argues the operator.

“Specifically, the EC Act states an essential facility 'cannot feasibly be substituted' and it is Telkom's contention that a wireless local loop these days is more than a substitute for both voice and broadband communications,” argues Telkom.

But ICASA says it is well aware of the ramifications around the definition of essential facilities vis-à-vis LLU and will address the issue in due course, in line with the set time frame.

“What, however, is critical, from the point of view of the authority, is to ensure access to the LLU is facilitated. In any event, the local loop, as a facility, is already legally obliged under chapter eight of the EC Act.”

Telkom also argued against the lack of clarification around how the authority would conduct and conclude a market review process for LLU. But ICASA explains it will explore the relevance to LLU of section 67 of the EC Act, in terms of significant market power and related numbers.

While ICASA has renewed its commitment to ironing out the necessary regulations before November, senior Frost & Sullivan analyst Vitalis Ozianyi remains sceptical of the actual implementation of the regulations this year.

Complicated process

Ozianyi maintains that, despite the issues raised by Telkom, it is possible the regulations concerning LLU will be in place this year still.

However, he questions whether the regulations will have the necessary clarification to begin the implementation of LLU this year.

ICASA councillor Thabo Makhakhe explains that, while the authority is committed to having resolved the regulatory issues, and the possible publication of LLU regulation before November, the actual unbundling process will take time.

Makhakhe would not indicate how long the implementation would take, but stated it is a complicated process. He pointed to the 10-year period it took British Telecom to unbundle its local loop.

Ozianyi argues that other LLU-related issues, such as the costs of leasing the local loop, as well as maintaining the infrastructure, will need to be addressed.

As such, Ozianyi explains that the implementation will be slow and incremental, with benefits being realised only in later years.

Local loop unbundling 'unlikely' in 2011

Local loop unbundling 'unlikely' in 2011
By Leigh-Ann Francis
Johannesburg, 5 Jan 2011

Industry's hopes that the local loop will be unbundled by November this year may be dashed, as fixed-line operator Telkom has already warned that regulatory and business hurdles make the deadline highly unlikely.

Late last year, communications minister Roy Padayachie committed to the November deadline, noting that local loop unbundling (LLU) remains a critical and important intervention.

The last mile, or local loop, is the copper link between the end-user and Telkom's network and is currently owned by Telkom.

The rationale behind LLU is to foster competition and reduce telecommunications costs by eliminating large investments by competitors to build their own infrastructure for last mile connectivity.

However, the process has been repeatedly delayed, after initially being mooted at least five years ago.

Regulatory hurdles

Telkom says it has embraced LLU and is working with both the Department of Communications, as well as the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) towards completing the process. However, the company argues that a number of regulatory issues need to be clarified before the process can get under way.

The operator believes a declaration of essential facilities must, by necessity, precede any potential local loop unbundling process.

“Notwithstanding that the Electronic Communications Act (EC Act) includes local loops in the indicative list of potential essential facilities, it is arguable whether the local loop is indeed an essential facility,” argues the operator.

“Specifically, the EC Act states an essential facility 'cannot feasibly be substituted' and it is Telkom's contention that a wireless local loop these days is more than a substitute for both voice and broadband communications.

“Even if local loops were indeed essential facilities, there are no provisions in the Act which stipulate the terms and conditions by which such facilities are to be unbundled,” Telkom continues.

Furthermore, argues Telkom, the process that would have to be followed to unbundle the local loop would be the market review process, as per Chapter 10 of the EC Act.

“To the degree that a local loop can provide one of three services, ie, voice, broadband and partial private circuits (half-leased lines), it is uncertain which market review ICASA would be required to use, since a remedy must not only relate to a market, however, further be confined to that market only,” explains Telkom.

“Even if, to be sure, all three market reviews were simultaneously undertaken, the list of pro-competitive remedies that may be imposed at the conclusion of a market review does not include unbundling of networks or facilities.”

Hence, there is much uncertainty on the regulatory process which should or could be followed to deliver local loop unbundling, presuming that a legitimate process exists in the first place, the operator maintains.

Comment from ICASA was not forthcoming at the time of publication.

Tight timelines

Secondly, having concluded the relevant regulatory process, Telkom will still need to undertake a product development process.

Telkom must determine the technical parameters of the service; the business rules and processes of the service; the prices of the service elements; the commercial and contractual conditions associated with the service; and the product relationships between local loop unbundling, facilities leasing and other network services.

The company explains that this process will take time, and given the number of variables both from a regulator perspective, as well as a business perspective, the operator does not believe the November deadline is realistic.


Too late

Meanwhile, industry believes it is already too late for LLU to make any real difference to competition in the industry.

Richard Hurst, senior analyst at Ovum, says local loop unbundling is a bit too late. “By the time it's done, it's not going to matter anymore. All the other operators will have rolled out their own infrastructure.”

Telcos are now in the process of connecting customers to their networks by technologies that cut out the last mile.

Neotel currently bypasses the copper infrastructure through wireless technology, and Vodacom has plans to eventually cut out the loop by running fibre directly to clients. In addition, Telkom is starting to eliminate the need for copper in its own network by putting in wireless connections.

Chris Gilmour, Absa Investments analyst, says ICASA has dragged its heels for so long that there is no real need to unbundle the last mile. He says copper will become a “deteriorating asset in the ground” and competitors will either role out fibre or wireless to connect.