WCA May 2017

Telecom news

Taking the emotional temperature of smartphone users, Ericsson and Vodafone find scant tolerance for substandard service In a project reported by Advanced Television (London), Vodafone Germany and the Swedish telecom equipment and services company Ericsson tapped neuroscience to understand what mobile broadband customers really think about poor network performance. Electro- encephalography (EEG) equipment was used to monitor the brain activity of 150 Vodafone subscriber-volunteers in Düsseldorf. The result showed that even small delays and disturbances raise levels of tension and stress, and have a negative impact on subscriber loyalty and operator brand. (“Research: Just One-Second Delay Annoys Mobile Broadband Subs,” 21 st February) The smartphone users taking part in the experiment were required to com- plete 13 specific tasks in ten minutes, while a hampering degradation in quality-of-service was simulated. The tasks included common actions such as browsing web pages, streaming videos and uploading “selfies”. In addition to the EEG equipment, eye-tracking gear and pulse meters monitored the attention span and heart rate of the participants. To Guido Weißbrich, the director of network performance at Vodafone Germany, the joint study proves how quickly smartphone users react unfavourably when a broadband network is not performing at its best. He told Advanced Televisio n that, since a mere one-second delay when downloading or uploading content has a significant negative impact on the user experience, “streaming services must do everything to avoid lengthy buffering or freezing of content.” Bradley Mead, who heads managed services and network design and optimisation at Ericsson’s Business Unit Network Services, concurred. Noting the potential of the new “valuable data” for optimising and engineering networks to maximise the customer experience, he said, “It is essential for operators to understand how people actually feel about the

service they provide and how it really impacts their day-to-day lives”. Publishing a fifth voluntary report on its taxes paid, Vodafone seeks to promote transparency Vodafone is one of very few multinational companies to make non-compulsory disclosure, on a country-by-country “actual cash paid” basis, of its total contribution to public finances, including details and explanations of tax payments and key taxation matters. In its most recent report the London-based telecom group also includes revenue and profit before taxes. Published on 20 th February, this provides an updated accounting of the year ended 31 st March 2016, including direct and indirect cash taxes paid by Vodafone in the countries in which it does business, as well as such non-taxation-based government rev- enue contributions as spectrum fees. Over that period, Vodafone reckons its cash contribution to public finances at more than $14.2 billion in the group’s countries of operation, compared with $11.6 billion in the previous reporting period (2014-15). The year-on-year increase was attributed primarily to the results of spectrum auctions in Germany and India. The group paid $320 million in direct taxes in the UK during 2015-16. Vodafone noted that it has published five tax transparency reports, on a voluntary basis, since 2012. Its stated purpose in doing so is to promote greater understanding of the various taxation systems, which it considers “integral to increasing trust [among] business, policy makers, and the public.” Elsewhere in telecom . . . Ø The 2017 global edition of the “Mobile Economy” report from GSMA projects that the number of unique mobile subscribers around the world will surpass five billion later this year, and will increase to 5.7 billion by the end of the decade. By that point, almost three-quarters of the world’s population will be subscribed to a mobile service. Subscriber growth over this period will be driven primarily by large Asia markets

such as India, which alone is forecast to add 310 million new unique subscribers by 2020. The London-based GSMA is a trade body that represents some 800 mobile operators worldwide. Its study, published on 28 th February, also highlights the on-going shift to mobile broadband networks and smartphones, and the mobile industry’s growing contribution to the global economy. Ø JURIST , the public-service website for legal news, on 17 th February took note of Dutch media reports that the Netherlands has proposed legislation to empower its government to block or undo mergers in the telecommunications sector. According to a statement from the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, the industries covered in the bill are in the category “telephony and the Internet”: Internet hubs, data centres, and hosting and certification services, all of which are deemed important for the “continuity, reliability and safety of services and infrastructure.” Minister Henk Kamp stated the rationale for the bill: “Netherlands benefits from the fact that we have an open economy in which the market is doing its job. So we take more business abroad than the other way about. Our country, however, has not benefited from takeovers by foreign companies that are linked to criminal activities, which are classified as financially vulnerable or have a non-transparent ownership structure. Given the national interests at stake, we lay a legal basis for the telecommunications sector in order to prevent such takeovers”. Mr Kamp’s statement also pointed out that the European Union permits member-countries to intervene in takeovers for reasons of overriding public interest, such as when national security, public law and order, or security and protection of vitally important industrial sectors are at stake. The draft legislation has been released to stakeholders for a commentary period. Mr Kamp hopes to present the bill to the Council of State in the second quarter of 2017, then to the House of Representatives.

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2017