The blog is on semi-hiatus, but I thought some of you would appreciate this news. On Wednesday June 8th our son Tycho Rudolf Willem was born in Almere, The Netherlands. He is the little brother of Grace :-) Mother and son are doing great. Pictures available on request :-) And yes, I was present, the two days before were spent in OECD working groups in Paris, discussing two papers I wrote with member countries.
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Sunday, 29 May 2011
I'll be speaking on WIK's conference on Bundling and Multi-Play
I'll be presenting at "Bundling and multi-play: Does it require a new regulatory paradigm?". This conference organized by the German WIK-Consult is held Monday and Tuesday in Brussels. I'll present OECD-work on Bundling, which was published last year. It's not my work, but the responsible colleagues were otherwise disposed or had changed to other jobs. The line up of speakers is quite interesting.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
First blogpost for the OECD... on International Women's Day (of course)
Working for the OECD may mean this blog is on hiatus, but that doesn't mean I stop blogging completely. Fortunately the OECD has some blogs and I've been allowed to write on International Women's Day. It's not a topic I'm an expert in, but as always I can have an opinion and I've got some skills in writing it down, so for your pleasure:
8 March is the centenary of International Women’s Day. This year, we mark the occasion with a series of blog posts about initiatives to strengthen gender equality worldwide. In this post, Rudolf van der Berg of the OECD’sScience, Technology and Industry Directoratediscusses sex discrimination in management.
As we celebrate the centenary of International Women’s Day, in OECD countries still only 5%-30% of senior management is female. This is often discussed in the context of right and wrong. But let’s look at it from the perspective of competences and economic performance.
The argument for there being so few women in management positions is that they just aren’t available and that the best person for the job needs to be promoted. However, with educational equality being the norm and girls and women actually performing better than boys and men in education, this argument seems to hold less than it did a hundred years ago on the first International Women’s Day.
The simple conclusion we have to draw from the numbers is that if competences and chances were distributed equally, we would see roughly 50% women on boards. Unfortunately we aren’t seeing this. We still see far less.
The sobering conclusion is that if our societies were more equal, 40% of the men in some form of management today wouldn’t be in that position. They are not competent enough, given the pool of talented women. However, since managers are continuing the practice of selecting men over women for any management position in the organization, this means they are dipping deeper into the pool of available men and pushing lesser qualified men up to positions they shouldn’t have been in.
The consequence of this is that the position of men in organizations is supported by a whole column of lesser qualified men, crowding out women and in their own self-interest keeping those women out.
That this has negative effects on the performance of companies is clear. In a series of studies byCatalyst, Fortune 500 companies with more women board directors are shown to have significantly better financial performance, including 53% higher returns on equity, 42% higher returns to sales, and 66% higher returns on invested capital.
If shareholder value or government effectiveness and efficiency is dependent upon having the right people in the right place, it is time CEOs and Ministers start looking around and down and wondering which of the men they see in management is the weakest link, and where in the company the more qualified woman has ended up.
Useful links
8 March is the centenary of International Women’s Day. This year, we mark the occasion with a series of blog posts about initiatives to strengthen gender equality worldwide. In this post, Rudolf van der Berg of the OECD’sScience, Technology and Industry Directoratediscusses sex discrimination in management.
As we celebrate the centenary of International Women’s Day, in OECD countries still only 5%-30% of senior management is female. This is often discussed in the context of right and wrong. But let’s look at it from the perspective of competences and economic performance.
The argument for there being so few women in management positions is that they just aren’t available and that the best person for the job needs to be promoted. However, with educational equality being the norm and girls and women actually performing better than boys and men in education, this argument seems to hold less than it did a hundred years ago on the first International Women’s Day.
The simple conclusion we have to draw from the numbers is that if competences and chances were distributed equally, we would see roughly 50% women on boards. Unfortunately we aren’t seeing this. We still see far less.
The sobering conclusion is that if our societies were more equal, 40% of the men in some form of management today wouldn’t be in that position. They are not competent enough, given the pool of talented women. However, since managers are continuing the practice of selecting men over women for any management position in the organization, this means they are dipping deeper into the pool of available men and pushing lesser qualified men up to positions they shouldn’t have been in.
The consequence of this is that the position of men in organizations is supported by a whole column of lesser qualified men, crowding out women and in their own self-interest keeping those women out.
That this has negative effects on the performance of companies is clear. In a series of studies byCatalyst, Fortune 500 companies with more women board directors are shown to have significantly better financial performance, including 53% higher returns on equity, 42% higher returns to sales, and 66% higher returns on invested capital.
If shareholder value or government effectiveness and efficiency is dependent upon having the right people in the right place, it is time CEOs and Ministers start looking around and down and wondering which of the men they see in management is the weakest link, and where in the company the more qualified woman has ended up.
Useful links
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
This blog is going on (semi-)hiatus
It has been a blast to be writing blogposts here. It was conceived as a way for me to vent of the ideas in my head and to be in contact with others who are interested in telecoms. Over 350 people now subscribe to my feed, articles get read and linked to. I've actually become a bit known in the industry because of you my readers, reacting and forwarding the articles.
However, as you know, I've started a new job at the OECD. It is a fantastic workplace with brilliant people and high level discussions of telecommunications policy. It also means that no matter what I blog about in the telecom industry, it is directly related to my work. The consequence of that is, that it will be very hard to separate the two and so I've decided to put the blog on semi-hiatus for the time that I work in Paris. I may write and Twitter occasionally or link to something I've published elsewhere. So don't delete me from your feed readers and Twitter just yet.
If you are in Paris anytime, send me note. I love to meet people and actually will go and have dinner tonight with someone I met through the blog!
However, as you know, I've started a new job at the OECD. It is a fantastic workplace with brilliant people and high level discussions of telecommunications policy. It also means that no matter what I blog about in the telecom industry, it is directly related to my work. The consequence of that is, that it will be very hard to separate the two and so I've decided to put the blog on semi-hiatus for the time that I work in Paris. I may write and Twitter occasionally or link to something I've published elsewhere. So don't delete me from your feed readers and Twitter just yet.
If you are in Paris anytime, send me note. I love to meet people and actually will go and have dinner tonight with someone I met through the blog!
Monday, 3 January 2011
Celebrating Bill St. Arnaud and his wireless vision
James Enck used to call the readers of his blog "Eurotelcoblog", super mega über valued readers or something of the like, when they provided him with interesting tidbits and insight. In Bill St. Arnaud's case the list of superlatives that I would need to give him in thanks to his efforts would be a bit too long and not do him justice. Ever since I published about how opening up the market for MVNO's to end-users, Bill has been a major supporter of the idea, often blogging about it. Today he wrote such a great post on what universities and research networks could do with the idea, that I have to give him his own article, anything else would just be too little.
If you want to know where the future of innovation in networks is, then read Bill's blog of today. It's very enlightening, about how networks could be build that seamlessly integrate traditional mobile and wifi networks can be integrated into one large network, that could support many innovations.
Without readers and supporters, this blog wouldn't be anywhere so that's why I'm celebrating Bill today!
If you want to know where the future of innovation in networks is, then read Bill's blog of today. It's very enlightening, about how networks could be build that seamlessly integrate traditional mobile and wifi networks can be integrated into one large network, that could support many innovations.
Without readers and supporters, this blog wouldn't be anywhere so that's why I'm celebrating Bill today!
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
The truth about 3 digit Mobile Network Codes (MNCs) E.212
Despite the title, I don't know the full truth about Mobile Network Codes and whether they can be 2 digit or 3 digits long. However, I'm getting an ever bigger suspicion no one really does. So after talking to experts from various telco's and standardisation organisations for more than a year and just before I head into a new world, I thought I write down everything I've learned about Mobile Network Codes as defined in ITU recommendation E.212. This is not all there is to know and I hope others will chime in. There is so much misinformation and Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, that it is hurting the development of the industry as a whole. I do have the sincere feeling, I'm the first person in a decade to fundamentally look at these numbers and the impact they have on the telecommunications market. I haven't seen any studies by any other researcher looking at these numbers at all. (Please prove me wrong, I would so love to see some other nutcase who looks at this stuff in-depth, preferably one who is way better than me and teaches me something new).
A Mobile Network Code is digits 4 to 6 of a 15 digit IMSI.
As you may know, your SIM-card carries a unique number, the 15 digit IMSI number. (there are more unique numbers for an IMSI, but this is the important one). This number is used in the network to identify the mobile subscriber. Based on the IMSI the network knows whether the SIM should be allowed access, the type of access it should be granted and where to route the bits too.
The pre-paid SIM-card from the Dutch supermarket MVNO Albert Heijn I bought yesterday as a temporary replacement has IMSI: 204122030140166. Decoding it leads to the following knowledge:
You're a policy maker and you need to know what to do
Before dismissing the potentially billions of euros of unrealized potential in the market and not changing a damn thing to the way MNC's are assigned, please ask a very very good and honest researcher to look into this. As far as I know there is no reason to be against this plan. But I am one person. I'm often right, but I may not be. After a year of searching though nobody I met who has serious mobile network knowledge has said I'm seriously bonkers and it cannot be done. Here is what I know. Don't be afraid to be critical. Do know, no one is paying me for this position.
A Mobile Network Code is digits 4 to 6 of a 15 digit IMSI.
As you may know, your SIM-card carries a unique number, the 15 digit IMSI number. (there are more unique numbers for an IMSI, but this is the important one). This number is used in the network to identify the mobile subscriber. Based on the IMSI the network knows whether the SIM should be allowed access, the type of access it should be granted and where to route the bits too.
The pre-paid SIM-card from the Dutch supermarket MVNO Albert Heijn I bought yesterday as a temporary replacement has IMSI: 204122030140166. Decoding it leads to the following knowledge:
- 204 is the Mobile Country Code of the Netherlands. Why it is necessary for mobile networks to know countries, I don't know. But it is in the spec. There are some operators like Digicel, who use one MCC 338 for their whole network in many different countries, deeming it too hard to work with an MCC for every Caribean Island and technically speaking they are right. Vodafone could easily use on MCC for all nations it operates in. Nothing breaks if you use an Italian MCC in Vatican city. Though it somehow is against best practices and the ITU doesn't like you doing it and wants operators and regulators to report extra territorial use of MCC's and MNC's
- 12 is the Mobile Network Code of Telfort. This used to be an indepent MNO with its own mobile network. It was bought by KPN, who switched of Telforts network and now Telfort is an MVNO on KPN's network. MNC's are issued by national regulators. In Vatican City this may well be Radio Vatican or the pope himself. The combination of MCC and MNC uniquely identifies the network. The E.212 spec says that the number can be 2 or 3 digits long. In Europe it is two digits long. In the rest of the world Wikipedia seems to show 3 digits are used as well. For instance Honduras, Columbia and the United States.
- 2030140166 is the Mobile Subscriber Identitification Number: In this case it is 10 digits long, per the standard it could also be 9 digits long. That gives every mobile operator at least a billion and up to 10 billion numbers. Though it could be issued completely at random, it does seem there is further logic in the number. For instance I heard that the first x digits are sometimes used to point at a specific Home Location Register, which keeps track of where SIM-cards are in the network. It seems HLR's can only accomodate x million devices per HLR. If you expect more than x million devices, using the first digits allows for easy internal routing of traffic. Furthermore specific MVNO's, like my supermarket MVNO may get their own range, so maybe 2030 is unique to Albert Heijn. Again, if they grow, it becomes easier to shift them to different or dedicated HLR
Friday, 24 December 2010
Leaving Logica to go and work for the OECD in Paris
It is with mixed emotions that I’m telling you that I’m leaving Logica to go to work for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and development in Paris as an economist/policy analyst in the information, communications and consumer policy division. Logica has given me great opportunities to work in the fields of telecommunications and utilities. I had the pleasure to work on a variety of projects ranging from shaping the Belgian energy sector, to smart metering and Machine to Machine communications and the future of ENUM in the Netherlands.
I’ll start at the OECD on January 3rd, initially for a period of 13 months. I will work on the high level meeting on the future of the internet economy, which will be held in June, and on other subjects regarding telecommunications policy. It’s an exciting step. I don't know yet how this will affect this blog as I don't know the OECD's approach to new media yet. It might be that the blog and twitter will go on hiatus.
I still hope to write two blogposts:
1. everything I know about 3 digit MNC's. There is hardly any information available about it and what is there is mostly misinformation
2. How we should get rid of the difference between public and private networks in most of our telecommunications law.
And I'm tempted to write a third as a reaction to the Berec mobile roaming consultation
So many ideas, so little time.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Wrote an article for Gigaom on Apple and SIMs
Gigaom just published an article by me called: "How to bypass carriers Apple style", on what Apple could do with the SIM-idea I developed for M2M. Apple is only in there because of the marketing value, Samsung, Sony, Philips, LG, Asus, all of them could be doing this. It works best for laptops and other data devices. These devices often don't have data roaming enabled, even if you use a dongle.
Have fun reading it!
GIGAOM Readers: please have a look at some of the other articles I wrote on the topic:
Other things I wrote:
Have fun reading it!
GIGAOM Readers: please have a look at some of the other articles I wrote on the topic:
- A very simple presentation to introduce the idea given at the Telco2 conference (click or scroll down)
- A more in depth management summary of the idea, focussed on embedded M2M
- There is also a 55 page document for the government of the Netherlands (in Dutch)
Other things I wrote:
Thursday, 18 November 2010
The GSMA changes opinion on programmable SIM-cards
In a surprise move, the GSMA today announced that it will standardize a new form of embedded SIM. This will allow remote activation and updates. The spec will be ready in January 2011. No word yet on whether or not the IMSI will be changeable after initial activation. This is however a complete reversal from the GSMA's position from the past:
Appendix A of 3GPP TR 33.812 V9.2.0 lists the opinion of the GSMA as
[…]Furthermore, one of the major concerns of MNOs is the potential weakening of the well-established and trusted SIM-based GSM/3G security architecture. Extended OTA (any kind and via any bearer of over the air data download to the USIM) capability to facilitate download of new subscriber keys and possibly authentication algorithms represents such a potential weakening of security.[...] not allowing MNOs to fulfil their obligations towards regulatory and other governmental authorities to guarantee secure authentication and billing.
[…]The only proposal in the TR that was acceptable to GSMA SG representatives was the Alternative 2 where operator change was performed by physical replacement of the UICC in the device.[…]
This would allow the likes of Apple to release mobile phones without removable SIM-cards. The biggest question is of course, why the GSMA changed its position and how much control they are willing to relinquish to the end-user, be they Apple or a smart metering company.
Though this will alleviate the problems I identified in my work on Machine to Machine communication, it's only 1 out of the 4 problems that I identified that now could be fixed (seeing is believing). Customers may be able to switch operators in the future, but roaming, national roaming and innovation, will probably still be limited.
Appendix A of 3GPP TR 33.812 V9.2.0 lists the opinion of the GSMA as
[…]Furthermore, one of the major concerns of MNOs is the potential weakening of the well-established and trusted SIM-based GSM/3G security architecture. Extended OTA (any kind and via any bearer of over the air data download to the USIM) capability to facilitate download of new subscriber keys and possibly authentication algorithms represents such a potential weakening of security.[...] not allowing MNOs to fulfil their obligations towards regulatory and other governmental authorities to guarantee secure authentication and billing.
[…]The only proposal in the TR that was acceptable to GSMA SG representatives was the Alternative 2 where operator change was performed by physical replacement of the UICC in the device.[…]
This would allow the likes of Apple to release mobile phones without removable SIM-cards. The biggest question is of course, why the GSMA changed its position and how much control they are willing to relinquish to the end-user, be they Apple or a smart metering company.
Though this will alleviate the problems I identified in my work on Machine to Machine communication, it's only 1 out of the 4 problems that I identified that now could be fixed (seeing is believing). Customers may be able to switch operators in the future, but roaming, national roaming and innovation, will probably still be limited.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
My presentation on M2M at Telco2.0 and my impression of the conference
Tuesday and Wednesday I was at the Telco 2.0 conference in London organised by STL. I was an invited speaker on the M2M track on Wednesday morning. Like many of you, I know the Telco 2.0 blog and knew of the conferences. Good friends in this community, like James Enck were on stage there before me. Other friends in this community stood at the basis of the Telco 2.0 ideas. So I was quite happy to be invited to the event.
Telco 2.0 on M2M
My presentation was part of the dedicated M2M track. Not all the attendants were there, but only those interested in M2M. The crowd was treated with a series of presentation from carriers and various forms of system integrators and suppliers.
What I found interesting in the telco presentations was, what they were and weren't about. What they weren't about is what their customers were doing and the problems that these customers were facing. What they were about is, potential use cases, the organisation of the telco's M2M unit and how it was embedded in the organisation and the design of the M2M platform. The whole reasoning was supply driven. Build it and they will have to come. As someone had warned a while ago, most telco diagrams of a problem start with their network in the upper left part of the page and the customer in the lower right part of the page. This is true. It also shows where their focus is; themselves, not their customer.
The difference between the telco's wasn't too great. Orange seems to go for a more fully integrated solution, where they will deliver the network, the platform and all sorts of other devices. Telenor has a dedicated group for M2M networking solutions, called Connexion and another group Objects that focus on service enablement, regardless of the network. So Connexion can sell to the whole market without involving Objects and vice versa.
Most of the presentations were at least of a decent quality and sometimes quite better. It deserves metntioning, because often this is different. However, the feeling these presentations give me in retrospect, is that of enormous budgets and very little idea of what the customer is looking for. This idea came from a remark by a quite brilliant and quiet Eastern European financial controller of a mobile telco, who remarked privately that his company just didn't have the size and the budgets necessary for such a platform, certainly given the 5 euro max revenue/month per SIM. This remark is so incredibly true. The large behemoths of European Telecoms are still swimming in the free cash flow. Free cash flow that is supposed to do something and might as well be spend on M2M. Running after every hype in the business, including M2M is not so much a necessity as it is a luxury.
The interactive format of Telco2.0 also means there was quite some feedback from the room, through instant polls. What it showed was that the audience was effectively split over the idea whether mobile telcos have a larger role to play in the M2M ecosystem.
My presentation on how M2M customers becoming MVNO's
I gave a presentation called "Your M2M customer wants to be MVNO". In generally the audience quite liked it. They thought it was thought provoking. I do think it was the most referenced presentation during the day. Both the facilitator and the speakers quite often referred to Rudolf or Logica. This was of course nice for my ego. I really focussed on the 4 central business problems and why becoming an MVNO was a solution.
What was also quite clear is that the industry really doesn't want to hear what I had to tell. The idea that a large scale M2M user is going to become a wholesale customer of the telco is just not done. There were some interesting comments why not:
Telco 2.0 on M2M
My presentation was part of the dedicated M2M track. Not all the attendants were there, but only those interested in M2M. The crowd was treated with a series of presentation from carriers and various forms of system integrators and suppliers.
What I found interesting in the telco presentations was, what they were and weren't about. What they weren't about is what their customers were doing and the problems that these customers were facing. What they were about is, potential use cases, the organisation of the telco's M2M unit and how it was embedded in the organisation and the design of the M2M platform. The whole reasoning was supply driven. Build it and they will have to come. As someone had warned a while ago, most telco diagrams of a problem start with their network in the upper left part of the page and the customer in the lower right part of the page. This is true. It also shows where their focus is; themselves, not their customer.
The difference between the telco's wasn't too great. Orange seems to go for a more fully integrated solution, where they will deliver the network, the platform and all sorts of other devices. Telenor has a dedicated group for M2M networking solutions, called Connexion and another group Objects that focus on service enablement, regardless of the network. So Connexion can sell to the whole market without involving Objects and vice versa.
Most of the presentations were at least of a decent quality and sometimes quite better. It deserves metntioning, because often this is different. However, the feeling these presentations give me in retrospect, is that of enormous budgets and very little idea of what the customer is looking for. This idea came from a remark by a quite brilliant and quiet Eastern European financial controller of a mobile telco, who remarked privately that his company just didn't have the size and the budgets necessary for such a platform, certainly given the 5 euro max revenue/month per SIM. This remark is so incredibly true. The large behemoths of European Telecoms are still swimming in the free cash flow. Free cash flow that is supposed to do something and might as well be spend on M2M. Running after every hype in the business, including M2M is not so much a necessity as it is a luxury.
The interactive format of Telco2.0 also means there was quite some feedback from the room, through instant polls. What it showed was that the audience was effectively split over the idea whether mobile telcos have a larger role to play in the M2M ecosystem.
My presentation on how M2M customers becoming MVNO's
I gave a presentation called "Your M2M customer wants to be MVNO". In generally the audience quite liked it. They thought it was thought provoking. I do think it was the most referenced presentation during the day. Both the facilitator and the speakers quite often referred to Rudolf or Logica. This was of course nice for my ego. I really focussed on the 4 central business problems and why becoming an MVNO was a solution.
What was also quite clear is that the industry really doesn't want to hear what I had to tell. The idea that a large scale M2M user is going to become a wholesale customer of the telco is just not done. There were some interesting comments why not:
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