NSN: Serving up cutting-edge mobile broadband tech

MANILA, Philippines - After recasting its breastplate from Nokia Siemens Networks into Nokia Solutions and Networks (yes, the 50-percent Siemens stake has been bought out), it’s still business as usual and all systems go for the mobile broadband giant.

In a release, NSN Rajeev Suri CEO said as much: “While our name and brand have changed, I would like to emphasize that our overall strategy and our focus on mobile broadband remain the same.”

“Our customers will not notice any difference in our unstinting commitment to delivering superior technology and services across the world,” Suri added.

Markku Nieminen, NSN country director, exclusively speaking to NetWorks, shared that NSN “decided to change” its business strategy in November 2011 — nixing small segments in favor of core strengths and major industries.

Although its parent company is Nokia Corp., that famous cellphone marque, NSN is a separate entity with its own executive board. Vindication for the refocused, right-sized firm came quickly. Nieminen said NSN has been making money since going back to core competencies.

NSN is keeping a keen eye and interest on the local market. Filipinos are arguably known as early adopters in this part of the world —  never ones to lag behind in taking advantage of tech to, say, communicate. Interestingly, this has translated to flattening SMS use, revealed Nieminen, in favor of mobile data.

NSN senior manager for strategic marketing programs Leslie Shannon told NetWorks that she observes and analyzes “3G and its take-up in developing markets — how operators are selling it and how end-users are taking it up and what they are doing with it.”

LTE market trajectory

The LTE evolution in a country, posited Shannon, usually starts with service providers battling on network coverage and quality — with faster being better, of course. “That’s pretty much where the Philippines is at right now with LTE,” she declared.

What’s next on the horizon then? “Once the network is there and it’s good enough — the battle is on rate plans and pricing.” Shannon said, “What’s fascinating is that everybody got burned by the 3G data price wars, so there are very few markets where we are actually seeing price wars in LTE.

“Instead, they are moving the competition into handset deals. That’s happened in Korea; it’s just happened in America.  They are moving the competition into whether we do unlimited or not — how much data to give at a good-enough price. It’s really good news for the industry that operators are not driving the price right down.”

After that, Shannon said it’s about putting LTE service in bundles or fixed offers — something that AT&T and Verizon does in the US. Beyond this phase is a focus on content.

Phl prospects

When asked how the local landscape would be like in five years, Shannon replied it would depend on the prices of LTE devices, but we are certainly seeing them plummet at a sharper rate than 3G.

The local infrastructure buildup and rollout has also been satisfactory, joined Nieminen. Smart has changed base stations to promise and accommodate heightened functionalities, and Globe is also following suit.

Shannon insisted that the Philippines is “way ahead of Indonesia, Thailand” and that the country “really stands out in the region as an early adopter.”

She continued: “The operators in the Philippines have always been go-to operators for key new moves in emerging markets… The key thing about the Philippines is that they have already started where many other countries in this regions have not.”

Everyday handphone users might not be cognizant of NSN’s relevance to them. “You don’t see us, but we are behind the operators,” said Nieminen. “We develop solutions.”

NSN worries about matters such as power consumption for base stations, friendly and economical hardware, and network modernization. “We are experts on how the radio network behaves,” the NSN executive said. “The operators call us, and we will help them.”

Shannon explained simply: “You buy your plane ticket from an airline. We are Boeing; we built the plane. It’s the innovations we bring — the savings, the technological advancements — that let you go where you want to go more cheaply and more comfortably.” Operators, therefore, buy the “plane” and customize it.

Quipped Nieminen: “We deliver the base station, install it, commission it.”

End-user convenience

As the Philippines gets more into mobile data, NSN is seeking to not only enable operators to deliver seamless service via hardware and infrastructure development, but to actually enhance and improve the end-user experience.

Indeed, technology would be meaningless if it does not do its job of empowerment and convenience. Customer experience management is thus an important cog of NSN’s operations. After all, knowledge is most definitely power. “We believe we are one of the forerunners in making operators understand the end-users,” insisted Nieminen.

This calls for a change in mindset, said Shannon, one that switches from “looking purely at network KPIs (key performance indicators) to end-user experience.” She underscored: “It’s so totally necessary.”

Nieminen mused: “It’s not only enough to know what’s going on, you need to fix them.”

Demoed at NSN’s NetworkLabs (a 500-strong “mobile broadband R&D center that focuses on 3G/4G technologies including Radio Access and Core Networks”), the Customer Experience Management (CEM) platform empowers customer service frontliners of telecom operators, giving them “the deepest possible understanding of their customers’ experiences, and helping to bridge the gap between customer satisfaction and network performance.” This insight also enables “prioritized action to resolve issues before they damage revenue.”

Smarter, faster

Meanwhile, the NSN brass remains excited about its Radio Application Cloud Server (RACS), which is at the heart of its Liquid Applications (discussed in a previous article for this section). RACS helps reduce latency by providing “processing and storage capabilities, together with the ability to collect real-time network data (which) can be exploited by applications to offer context-relevant services that transform the mobile broadband experience and directly translate that experience into value.”

Imagine a base station detecting your real-time entry into a favorite store, then immediately forwarding to your smart phone a savings coupon for use. Intuitive, targeted advertising can also be enabled — promising more cost-effective campaigns.

Tourists, on the other hand, can take advantage of so-called augmented reality to discover shops, moviehouses (along with screening times), and other destinations by simply pointing their device onto a building.

Such technologies might sound stuff of science fiction, but NSN’s thinkers and doers will probably be first to tell you that, like their services, latency to the future is being reduced as we speak.