I am attending the 1st FUSECO Forum in Berlin, at Fraunhofer FOKUS

A few takeaways (slides at download)
HP Baumeister – Fraunhofer Digital Media Technologies, USA
+ Verizon happy to be a „bit pipe provider“ and teams-up with Skype exclusively

Franz Seiser, Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany
+ Deployment (especially integration) of EPC into existing infrastructure true challenge (despite the streamlined architecture of EPC itself)
+ Roaming (in particular IMS roaming) and QoS (different signalling) big challenge
+ Roaming primarily a European issue
+ Challenge with signalling load in LTE due to non-standard conform feature (immediate dormant mode) of smart phones (for energy saving). Operators don““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““t have any means to control signaling in their networks
+ Another challenge related to signaling is that LTE/EPS uses Diameter exclusively and hence is not simple to integrate into existing SS7-based 2G/3G systems
+ IMS still way too much focused on fixed networks

Giulio Maggiore – Telecom Italia, Italy / ETSI TC INT Chairman, France
+ IMS & EPC Interoperability to be released by ETSI TC INT in 2011
+ Workshop 3GPP rel 8 Implementation, Deployment and Testing, 24-25 Nov 2010, Sophia Antipolis, FR

Industry panel:
Markus Beckmann, Accenture, Germany, Sven Akesson, Ericsson, Sweden, Wolfgang Hummel (Telco SM), HP, Germany, Cornel Pampu, Huawei Technologies, Germany, Bernd Wunderlich (Telco SM), IBM Deutschland, Germany
Thorsten Robrecht (Head of Global LTE), Nokia Siemens Networks, Germany, Alain Dakroub, Tekelec, France

+ NSN: currently has (global) 52% of GSM subsribers and 72% of WCDMA, currently 32 LTE networks globally (LTAM, Asia), Germany also close to forefront, NSN roughly 1M LTE basestations deployed globally, devices are already there and comercially available in weeks/month, 50% of NSNs business is already operating networks, 45K LTE basestations to be deployed by Lightsquared and operated by NSN
+ IBM: Germany decreasing telco market, question what can LTE do to solve this – generate more revenue?, Operators have to operate 2G, 2.5G, 3G and soon 4G networks but revenues shrink (~2 percent), challenge / opportunity is cloud computing for enterprises, OTT-provider kept the consumer based for them
+ HP: Offers a combined HLR+HSS product, better work with OTT (like Goolge) rather to fight them
+ Ericsson: IMS already deployed (mostly in fixed domain), Ericsson has a unit Global Services and running (deploying/operating) already hundreds of networks
+ Accenture: One challenge with these technologies is the process change that comes along with convergence (e.g. by EPC/SAE), massive impact on IT systems, changes needed in ticketing, customer support, OSS/BSS, etc, key element to address pressure of decreasing revenues is out sourcing to dedicated specialists in countries abroad (e.g. India, Asia, East-Europe) – examples engineering, operations (e.g. provisioning in shared service centers) and similar.

Q&A: Shall operators outsource core services like voice? Accenture: better not

M2M Opportunities – Lessons Learned from the US Market
Ronald M. Jubainville, Sprint, UK
+ Sprint SIP-enabled IMS network since Aug 9th 2006, First US 4G network in the US, World““““s first 3G/4G Android phone
+ What matters are devices, e.g. Mobile ATMs (average load per Mobile ATM is 6MB/month)
+ Usage-based insurance for cars with 183M users operational

Alfonso Ehijo, Telmex International, Latin America / University of Chile
+ Verizon does befriend the idea of bit-pipe provider due to compensation by several exlusive partnerships with Google, Skype, and similar content/service providers
+ Relationship (the R in smart) is what really matters (c.f. Verizon)

Roberto Minerva, Telecom Italia, Italy
+ Too many network APIs out there
+ The problem is that Telco““““s are accountable and for that make usage of network APIs complex and heavy
+ Issue is the difference between global Internet services and local communication (network) services
+ IMS will not be able to support services for business services
+ OneAPI is too late
+ Interoperability is an issue for telcos, not the users
+ WebCo(mpanies) are much faster and release alpha versions and by that involve the users early – versus – Telco““““s develop standards over years …

Q&A: There is a big opportunity in the _private_ cloud (Google is not (yet) there) says Sprint

Prof. Marc Drüner, trommsdorff + drüner, Germany
+ Marketing has to go online, „go where the customers are“, people expect the company comes to them,
+ Cool Internet App: Mint.com – manage your financials using the wisdom of the crowds!
+ 75% percent of Indian youth has first contact with Internet via mobile devices
+ Extensive study of Retail Use Cases available by the company

Boaz Zilberman, fring, Israel
+ IMS is a waste of time, too complex, too heavy,
+ Mobile app industry leapfroged IMS

Sebastian Krems, ITCcon GmbH, Germany
+ Wholesale is key to the future and this means partnership
+ Wholesale industry in the telco domain behind to other industries
+ Roughly 250MB of information per year/person, total 1-2extabyte/year
+ Telco industry sustained 50% of price decline/year for the last 30 years
+ Wholesale today: long distance: doesn““““t make a good business anymore -> efficiency and scale are king; access: potential for a long-term business for investors who can sustain a steep ramp-up
+ In the future – wholesale will be all over the place!

Dr. Ralf G. Herrtwich, Daimler AG, Germany
+ The most profitable pieces in a car „integrated solutions“
+ So far web-experience in vehicles are lousy! Network doesn““““t support 200km/h ! – LTE could be the solution

Philipp Freudenberger, SAP, Germany
+ SAP about to take a bold step into the (enterprise) mobility domain (c.f. Sybase acquisition), along with SAP““““s strive for broader adoption of its solutions (goal of 1bn users by end of 2010)
+ Value chains get more and more sophisticated, increasing number of players, stakeholders, – business networks
+ How to make money out of an increasing amount of information? – Example: „from starvation to restaurant to food and payment“, „collaborative eCare“, „utilities – increased collaboration by smart cars, smart meters“, „retail – highly collaborative since customers can use real-time offer/price comparisions“

Closing Note by the Chairman – Thomas Magedanz, TU Berlin / Fraunhofer FOKUS
+ Still many open questions to be answered, especially in view of the more complex value chains in the future
+ Will there be a common platform in the future that supports this value chains and allows for collaborative value proposition?
+ This will be addressed by „Future Internet Research“ !

Epilog (by TMB)

* Some Teminology
LTE = Long Term Evolution (also known as eUTRAN)
SAE = System Architecture Evolution
(3GPP technical study item defining EPC)
EPC = Evolved Packet Core
EPS = Evolved Packet System incl EPC, LTE and terminal