【英语财经】世界移动大会凸显电信企业的新挑战 Telecoms groups look to reclaim role at core of consumers’ lives

Telecoms businesses are trying to get their mojo back. And this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will be where they hope to show exactly how they can put themselves back at the heart — and in the pockets — of the connected consumer.

Smartphone makers stung by stalling sales and falling prices are looking to reinvigorate their devices with new technology, and expand into areas such as virtual reality, imaging and wearable technology.

A similar challenge faces telecoms operators. They want to bring back the excitement of the early years of the smartphone revolution, backed up by newly minted networks capable of delivering the internet to every pocket.

More than 100,000 people will attend Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the industry’s biggest event, with hundreds of telecoms groups, device makers and technology groups showing off their latest innovations in a dozen vast warehouses.

“Mobile is everything — connecting everybody and everything,” says Mats Granryd, director-general of the GSMA, the telecoms trade body that organises the event. “Digitalisation is at the heart of everything, and that has become mobile.”

Mr Granryd points to the size of an industry that the GSMA says contributes $3tn to the global economy, alongside $250bn in capital expenditure and creates some 25m jobs.

Telecoms network groups want to become the gatekeepers to the internet through broadband services accessed from home and via the smartphone.

“The number of screens that consumers in Europe use or watch today is a trend no one in the industry anticipated,” says Gervais Pellissier, deputy chief executive of Orange.

“Now we are seeing a new frontier emerging around the internet of things. The underlying consumption of bandwidth continues its upward trajectory and there are no signs of it abating.”

Mr Granryd believes that the smartphone will continue its shift to becoming the gateway for individuals that want to access banking, government services, transportation and even operate as a passport.

He admits that the telecoms operators hope that putting the smartphone to such uses will be the next evolution in their relationship with customers.

One reason for the shift is that consumers are less likely to be tied to a single operator. Physical sim cards, for example, are becoming less common, enabling customers to roam across networks in search of the cheapest offers. This means that telecoms groups need a new way to keep customers paying the monthly bills — hence the drive into new services and applications.

Mr Pellissier predicts another shift in how people pay for their telecoms services. “The current pricing model based on consumer volume consumption of data will cease to exist in a few years’ time,” he says. “The business models need to change to reflect consumers’ value perception based on access to what they deem important, be that content or services.”

Investing to keep pace with the internet of the future, which will deliver many times more data to mobile devices and connected devices require considerably better networks, is another challenge.

The internet of things — tens of billions of sensors linked to the network that will control connected cars, cities, industrial applications and home appliances — will require faster, more robust networks. High-speed “5G” networks will be crucial to provide near instant reaction times capable of supporting driverless cars as well as download speeds of more than 1gbps.

Companies will also need to extend networks in more emerging markets. The GSMA estimates that 1bn people are not covered by a cellular network, while 2bn have coverage but do not yet use the internet. As those numbers shift, a big market for both voice and data services will open up.

The potential for this market has not been lost on technology groups such as Facebook, whose chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will talk about his ambitions to connect people in poorer countries to the internet.

The other major draw at MWC will be the new ranges of smartphones being shown off by the world’s largest handset makers.

These groups are also facing a dilemma now that most people in developed markets have a device — and supplying those who do not in emerging markets is a low-margin, commoditised business. Easy growth is over, and the upgrade cycle is lengthening.

Samsung, Sony, LG, Xiaomi and Huawei are all expected to unveil new phones.

But the most exciting move by these companies could be their efforts to move beyond smartphones, into areas such as virtual reality and wearable devices.

“We are looking beyond the smartphone — and that is about making the smartphone the gateway to the next generation of connected services,” says one telecoms executive.

Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner, the research firm, expects vendors to offer more bundles of sensors with enhanced connectivity standards to support the role of the smartphone as the central hub for the connected home and smart workspaces.

One of the key applications will be VR, with groups such as Samsung and HTC keen to show the strides they have made in creating a broader consumer market.

“Samsung Gear VR already uses a smartphone as a portal for VR experiences, and we expect continued development of this more mainstream approach together with the consumption of 360-degree videos,” says Ms Cozza.

Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight, says that user-generated content will be a major factor in virtual reality taking off. CCS Insight predicts that dedicated VR devices will record sales of nearly $1bn by the end of 2016.

“The big unanswered question is how much it will cost? That could be the make or break factor,” Mr Wood says.

Mobile World Congress will showcase the wares of groups spanning telecoms equipment, networks and handsets. But connecting them all will be the need to show that they are part of the next wave of innovation — as well as the fear that they may well be swamped in the undercurrent of the last.

电信企业正试图恢复它们的魔力。今年于巴塞罗那召开的世界移动大会(Mobile World Congress)正是一个契机，它们希望在会上展示自己到底打算如何重获互联网用户的青睐，以及如何进入他们的荷包。

智能手机制造商受到销量停滞和产品价格下跌的打击，它们正寻求利用新技术来优化设备，并进军虚拟现实、影像和可穿戴技术等领域。

电信运营商面临类似挑战。它们希望借助能让所有人兜中的设备连上互联网的新网络，重现智能手机革命初期那些年的辉煌。

逾10万人将会出席巴塞罗那的世界移动大会，这是电信业最大规模的盛会，数百家电信公司、设备制造商和技术公司将在十来座大型仓库中展示它们的最新发明。

主办此次大会的电信行业团体——全球移动通信系统协会(GSMA)的总干事马茨?格兰吕德(Mats Granryd)表示：“移动是一切——连接每个人和每样东西。数字化是一切的核心，它已经成为移动的数字化。”

格兰吕德强调了该行业的规模，GSMA表示，该行业为全球经济贡献了3万亿美元，另外还有2500亿美元的资本支出，并创造了大约2500万个就业岗位。

电信网络公司希望通过人们在家中和用智能手机接入的宽带服务，成为互联网的守门人。

法国电信运营商Orange的副首席执行官热尔韦?佩利谢尔(Gervais Pellissier)表示：“欧洲消费者如今使用或者观看多块屏幕，这是业内所有人都没有预见到的趋势。”

“现在我们看到了围绕物联网出现的新前沿。基本的宽带消费继续其上升轨迹，不存在任何减缓的迹象。”

格兰吕德相信，智能手机将继续转变角色，成为个人获取银行、政府和交通服务的门户，乃至充当他们获取这些服务的通行证。

他承认，电信运营商希望，将智能手机用于此类用途，将是它们与客户的关系发生的又一次演变。

这种转变的一个理由是，消费者不太可能与单单一家运营商绑在一起。例如，实体的sim卡越来越不常见，这让客户能够随意转网以寻找最便宜的服务。这意味着，电信公司需要找到让客户每月支付账单的新方法——这也就是他们开发新服务和新应用的动力。

佩利谢尔预计，人们还会转变电信服务支付方式。他说：“当前基于消费者数据消耗量的定价模式几年后就将不复存在。现有的商业模式需要改变，以反映消费者对价值的看法，进行改变的基础是，能够接入消费者认为重要的东西——无论是内容还是服务。”

为跟上未来互联网发展的步伐进行投资是另一个挑战——未来的互联网向移动设备传送的数据将是现在的许多倍，而且联入网络的设备要求网络质量大大提升。

无数联入网络的传感器，控制着联入网络的汽车、城市、工业应用和家电产品，这就是物联网。物联网将需要更快、更稳固的网络。高速的5G网络将非常关键，它能够提供近乎即时的反应速度（为无人驾驶汽车提供支撑），还能提供每秒逾1Gb的下载速度。



企业还将需要在更多新兴市场拓展网络覆盖。据GSMA估计，有10亿人口未获手机网络覆盖，还有20亿人虽然享有网络覆盖，却还未使用互联网。随着上述数字的改变，语音和数据服务都将打开一个巨大的市场。

Facebook等科技企业并非还不理解这一市场的潜能。Facebook首席执行官马克?扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)将畅谈他让较贫穷国家的人们连上互联网的雄心壮志。

世界移动大会另外一个主要看点，是全球最大手机制造商展示的各种新款智能手机系列产品。

这些企业也面临一个两难困境：发达国家多数人已经拥有了手机，而向新兴市场那些没有手机的人们提供手机，则是利润微薄、缺乏新意的业务。轻而易举获得增长的时代已经结束，产品更新换代的周期正在延长。

三星(Samsung)、索尼(Sony)、LG、小米(Xiaomi)和华为(Huawei)预计都会发布新款手机。

不过，这些企业最令人振奋的举动，可能是他们进军虚拟现实和可穿戴设备等智能手机以外领域的尝试。



一位电信业高管表示：“我们正在把眼光投向智能手机以外。这么做的目的，是要让智能手机成为通往下一代联网服务的门户。”

研究公司Gartner的研究主管罗伯塔?科扎(Roberta Cozza)预计，供应商会提供更多满足更高互联标准的传感器，为智能手机充当联网住宅和智能办公室的中心提供支撑。

其中一个关键的应用将是虚拟现实技术。三星和HTC等公司都非常希望展示他们在拓宽消费市场方面取得的长足进步。

科扎表示：“三星的Gear VR已经把智能手机当做连接虚拟现实体验的接口。我们预计这种更主流的方式以及360度视频的消费都将继续发展。”

市场调研公司CCS Insight的分析师本?伍德(Ben Wood)表示，在虚拟现实技术的起飞过程中，由用户生成的内容将会是一个主要的推动因素。CCS Insight预计，到2016年年底前，专门的虚拟现实设备将录得近10亿美元的销售额。

伍德表示：“一个待解的大问题是它的价格是多少？这可能会是决定其成败的因素。”

世界移动大会展示的产品将来自形形色色各种企业，从电信设备提供商、到网络运营商和手机制造商。然而，令这些企业走到一起的原因，一方面是它们需要向世界展示自己是下一波创新的一分子，另一方面则是它们担心自己很可能会被上一波创新的暗流所吞没。

译者/何黎