Contributing Industry Expert		Contributing Analyst
	Brian Levy Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Hewlett-Packard		Lorenza Brescia Principal Analyst, Managing Partner Telecom Strategy Partners

Interview Summary
Lorenza Brescia interviews Brian Levy on the importance of managing customers' information, the role of mobile TV, and the models that operators can adopt toward the maximization of those new revenue-generating opportunities. Both Ms. Brescia and Mr. Levy are participating in the SOFNET educational programming. View the SOFNET conference schedule for more information.

1) What importance do service operators place in having the ability to manage customer information and provide customized services in the mobile arena, and how can this affect their profitability?

The importance of customer information is increasing as services move to a personal paradigm as opposed to the network and device world of today. In the past, services were mostly embedded in network infrastructure, but today, it is no longer the case — with many services being provided by "over-the-top" service providers like YouTube or MySpace.

Services of the future are likely to not only span the mobile networks, but also span fixed and broadband networks. In this new world, the value of customer data will be paramount and, in my view, will be linked to the ability to drive revenue and profitability. In fact, the more information you have about a customer, the more you can drive customer service experiences. In this new world, customer experience and value are very closely related.

From a mobile operator perspective, customer data can be divided into two types, "static" and "dynamic." For static data, the mobile operator has the name and address of the customer, and the customer's service subscriptions from the operator. To some extent this is useful, but the operator is challenged for value as static data, like the customer's music tastes, other interests, and community subscriptions may be outside of the mobile operator's view. In the static space, operators have to compete for customers' services and their associated data. Yes, they can leverage their network advantages of QoS and other embedded network features to differentiate, but the challenge of the best service experience is really on full pace here.

In the dynamic real time, mobile operators have some unique advantages. They are able to detect where the customer is, which device the customer is using, and if the customer is making a call. In the dynamic case, the operator has information like call usage records and the URLs of Web pages referenced-and much more about the customer. This information is of real advantage for the mobile operator and is not available to the over-the-top providers.

More and more, mobile operators are realizing the issues and are beginning to think of their network from both an internal service perspective and as a platform for other people's services. The problem is that they risk being turned into bit pipes over time if they do not get their strategy right-and they are very afraid of this. The span of services across not just mobile, but also broadband fixed, also presents a challenge. It is now difficult to see how a pure mobile network can survive in the future without having a broadband arm.

2) You have recently launched a new service delivery platform, the HP SDP 2.0, and a new suite of mobile devices, the iPAQ. What kind of applications do you think will be most marketable with mobile subscribers in the next two years?

I think we are going to see a large growth in push services, that is, push e-mail, mobile podcasts with direct download, RSS feeds, and all sorts of things over the next few years. We are going to see the Internet go truly mobile. The very nature of FMC services will change from mobile services over broadband approach of UMA to an Internet services everywhere approach using HSDPA, Wi-Fi, and other broadband data connectivity. The iPhone is just one of a whole range of devices that will take the Internet out to mobility. Operators face a challenge regarding how they can address this new world. SDPs were originally about generating services on your network quickly and in an integrated way. Today they not only have to do this, but they have to enable the new world of the network as a platform. Applications like HP's third-party framework are revolutionary in this regard, allowing mobile operators to use their networks as a platform and aggregation point for services to their customer base from third-party providers.

An example is the ability to have the mobile operator provide authentication, location, and context for third-party services — delivered across the operator's platform and user devices — and to bill the service provider for the capabilities provided and customer for the service, aggregating the charge onto the customer's bill and passing back a payment to the service provider from the customer.

3) Mobile TV faces far greater potential competition for entertainment than did the introduction of mobile voice or data, thanks to the success of portable multimedia devices such as Apple's iPod. How can operators create new services that will be equally as compelling (and successful) as mobile voice has been?

Personally, in its basic form I do not think mobile TV will be a big revenue generator. Certainly, combined with interactivity, it would be better. The problem is that when I am on the train at 5 am … I do not want to watch "Farming Today." I want to watch what I want to watch, my favorite soap or drama, and I can "side load" that from broadcast TV and store [it] on the devices. Or as you say, I can download a film from iTunes.

Mobile TV consumption, outside of news and sports, does not require a transmission network and can be non-real-time. I do not think that the traditional consumption model applies to mobile use and replicating traditional broadcast television over mobile will not be a very successful approach-certainly not a highly profitable one in my view. But there is great value in providing static and interactive content for anytime consumption on the move. People will pay a deal of money for not being bored when traveling, but it's not broadcasting in the traditional sense.

4) What can vendors and operators do in term of determining the optimal technology, architecture, business case, advertising model, and content options for an emerging, high potential market opportunity such as mobile TV, and how critical is the potential convergence of fixed and mobile broadband services to their success? Have you seen any innovative thinking that indicates a model of how operators can maximize these opportunities?

Basically, I think about the user experience and not the technology. Think about what would be best for the customer, and then work on the right technologies to deliver it. In this thinking, do not replicate the services of the past but develop the new ones for the future. So, it's not "IPTV" where the customer does not know what "IP" is, and it's not about the TV, phone, or PC. It is about ALL of these devices and more with the ability to consume digital entertainment wherever you are and with the best customer experience for that location and context.

In this world, service convergence is more important than network convergence — that is, I want access to my services on my TV, my phone, and my PC — and I do not really care if the connectivity comes from a number of service providers. But what I want is a harmonized experience — one account, one bill, and one ubiquitous service. I would like to watch some video on the TV, press a button to pause, continue on the phone two hours later, then pause and continue back at home later on the TV. The need for instantaneous roaming of services across fixed mobile for voice is a useful capability — and for voice it is nice to have — but not an absolute necessity. It is more important to maintain a good customer experience and service transparency across devices and networks.