Berg Insight says worldwide installed base of smart electricity meters will reach 602.7 million units in 2016

Gothenburg, Sweden – October 20, 2011: New research from the analyst firm Berg Insight says that the worldwide installed base of smart electricity meters will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26.6 percent between 2010 and 2016 to reach 602.7 million at the end of the period. During the next five years, penetration rates for smart metering technology are projected to increase from around 15–25 percent today to around 50 percent in Europe and North America and over 75 percent in Asia-Pacific. By 2020, penetration rates are expected to approach 100 percent in most developed countries with massive rollouts also taking place in new territories such as Latin America, India and the Middle East.

“Securing a sustainable supply of energy will be one of the greatest challenges for mankind in the 21st century”, said Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst, Berg Insight and author of the report. “Smart grid technologies will make a major contribution to achieving this goal by improving the efficiency at all levels of the electricity supply chain from generation to transmission, distribution and consumption. Smart meters are the gateways that connect consumers to the smart grid and enable them to interact with other players in the ecosystem.”

Berg Insight ranks Europe and North America as the most advanced adopters of smart metering technology today. A majority of the countries in Western Europe have passed legislation that requires nationwide rollouts before the end of this decade and a few such as Italy and Sweden already have fully operational systems. All EU member states that have not already done so are required to perform a cost-benefit analysis of smart metering before September 2012. In the US, important states such as California and Texas have mandated the introduction of smart meters or given their approval for massive rollouts proposed by utilities. Furthermore the federal government has granted nearly US$ 5 billion in funding for smart grid projects that frequently involve smart meter rollouts.

China and other countries in East Asia are in an early phase of adoption but have very aggressive installation plans. The State Grid Corporation of China is currently deploying 50–60 million advanced electricity meters per year as preparation for the construction of a nationwide smart metering network within five years. The new generation of meters is prepared for two-way communication once a network connection becomes available. Elsewhere in the region, South Korea has an ambitious plan for a nationwide smart grid network that is being implemented by the national utility KEPCO and in Japan the government is looking to smart meters as a part of the solution to the new challenges facing the country’s electricity industry.

iZettle Rings Up €8.2 Million ($11.2 Million) In Series A Funding

Stockholm – 19th of October 2011: iZettle, the social payments company, today announced it has received €8.2 million ($11.2 million) in Series A funding led by Index Ventures with co-investor Creandum and further investment from Charles Dunstone, CEO and Co-founder of The Carphone Warehouse.

The Series A funds will be used to expand into chip-card markets outside of Sweden as well as support the development of the iZettle sevice, which enables anyone to take credit or debit card payments anytime, anywhere and makes it easy to share purchases with friends on Facebook.

iZettle’s free iPad, iPhone and iPod touch app and mini chip-card reader launched in Sweden in August 2011 and became an instant hit in the App Store; It rocketed to number one in the finance category and number four in the overall App Store.

Ben Holmes, Index Partner who joins iZettle board of directors comments: ”iZettle is a company with the right technology at the right time. Its simple and cost-effective system is opening up a whole new frontier for the payments industry.”

“It all comes down to fantastic convenience,” adds Simon Örtqvist, who operates the Mexican food cart Edvinsson&Örtqvist in Stockholm. “I want to capture every sale possible. People don’t always have cash in their pocket. iZettle gives my customers the option of paying with a card.”

iZettle puts security at the heart of its business. It is EMV (Europay, MasterCard and VISA) approved, and compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). No sensitive data is ever stored on the mobile device or iZettle reader, and all data traffic is encrypted.

“We were impressed that the iZettle team had managed to build a system which achieved the high security levels required for chip card processing yet also remained beautifully simple and intuitive to use. We look forward to helping the team with their global expansion.” says Creandum General Partner, Johan Brenner, who is also joining iZettle’s board.

The company was founded in April 2010 by serial entrepreneurs Jacob de Geer, former vice president of business development at TradeDoubler, and Magnus Nilsson, former CEO at Wayfinder and executive vice president of EF Education Group.

Telefónica and VMware to Offer Work and Personal Profiles

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Oct. 19, 2011 – Today at VMworld® 2011 Europe, Telefónica and VMware, Inc. announced a strategic partnership to deliver VMware Horizon Mobile™, enabling Telefónica customers to gain the freedom to choose a single Android device for work and personal use.

VMware Horizon Mobile will provide a simple way for IT departments to securely provision, manage and de-provision a corporate mobile workspace (phone, email, applications, data, etc.) to an employee’s Android device over-the-air, while enabling the employee to retain the privacy and control of their personal mobile environments.

VMware Horizon Mobile and Telefónica cloud solutions will enable users to gain access to a catalog of corporate approved applications and corporate data resources. Unlike other mobile solutions that require customized application development, enterprises and public organizations using VMware Horizon Mobile will be able to access and leverage the more than 250,000 applications available on the Android Market.

As a global operator, Telefónica’s expertise in mobile networks provides the ability to have a second corporate, mobile (voice and data) subscription attached to an individual’s personal mobile device. VMware Horizon Mobile isolates an individual’s personal and professional profiles at application level and supports separate work and personal telephone numbers and data services. Telefónica also plans to make the VMware Horizon Mobile Manager solution available in a cloud environment, enabling enterprises of all sizes to manage and deploy dual persona devices to their employees.

'VMware Horizon Mobile™ with our dual subscription feature and Telefónica cloud services will provide enterprises with the opportunity to manage and deliver a secure mobile environment, while providing individuals complete freedom over the personal use of the device,' said Carlos Morales, Global M2M, Cloud and Apps Director of Telefónica Digital. 'In addition, the ability to provision virtual work phones via the cloud means that corporate virtual phones can be easily updated and redeployed in case of loss or theft. As a result, expenses are reduced, employees are not bothered by restrictive policies and, most importantly, the corporate environment is fully secured.'

'Inspired by the great experience they have with technology in their personal time, people want to bring the same devices and experience to work,' said Dr. Stephen Herrod, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research and Development, VMware. 'Working with Telefónica, VMware can offer enterprises the freedom to embrace employee-owned devices like never before. Offering the ability to easily provision and manage a ‘virtual phone-in-a-phone’, VMware Horizon Mobile™ will be able to provide both the security and control required by the enterprise, and the freedom of choice sought by employees.'

To bring this solution to the market, both Telefónica and VMware are working with a growing ecosystem of partners. Among these various partners, Samsung will offer the Samsung Galaxy SII, tested and ready for use with VMware Horizon Mobile on Telefónica wireless networks.

'As consumers increasingly bring their own mobile devices to work, we are looking for ways to implement solutions to support this trend,' said Jongshin Kim, Vice President of Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics. We are excited to provide an option that would satisfy both individual users as well as IT professionals, using Samsung mobile devices.'

Huawei and Rostelecom Successfully Complete Coherent 100G Trail on Rostelecom's Live Network

[Shenzhen, China, October 19, 2011]: Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, and Rostelecom, the leading fixed network operator in Russia, today jointly announced the successful completion of a coherent 100G trail on a 1,033 kilometer stretch of Rostelecom's live network between the cities of Moscow and Samara.

Coherent 100G is the latest technology for transmitting high-speed 100G services, making them better adapted to fiber transmission so that services can be transmitted at a higher rate over a longer distance.

The rapid growth of bandwidth leasing has led to an explosive increase in broadband services transmitted between Europe and Asia. This traffic accounts for most of the transport capacity of Rostelecom’s backbone networks, and to ensure that it can continue to develop services in the future, Rostelecom has been exploring the possibility of constructing 100G backbone transport networks. This trial confirmed the possibility of using coherent 100G technology on Rostelecom’s live network.

The link between Moscow and Samara, an important industrial city in the Volga region, is one of Rostelecom’s busiest, and is therefore in urgent need of 100G technology. Huawei's 100G technology, which uses ePDM-QPSK (enhanced Polarization Division Multiplexing Quadrature Phase Shift Keying), is the most advanced technology in the 100G transport network field. It is able to perform well in both anti-nonlinearity and ultra-long haul transmission, which made it perfectly equipped for this coherent 100G trail.

During the trail, Huawei's 100G technology allowed 100GE services to be successfully transmitted over the 1,033 kilometers between Moscow and Samara without the use of an electrical regenerator. In addition, hybrid transmissions of 100G and 40G services were achieved.

"In 2002, Huawei deployed the first Wavelength Division Multiplexing backbone network for Rostelecom, and since then, Huawei's WDM products have been deployed on 25,000 kilometers of Rostelecom’s backbone network," said Evgeny Zhukov, head of technical solutions to regional transportation networks of Huawei in CIS. In addition to spurring the evolution of transport technologies from 10G to 40G and then to 100G, Huawei has also kept forging ahead in the development of WDM networks to provide customers with more valuable solutions and services.

"We are happy that our coherent 100G solution passed Rostelecom’s rigorous testing with flying colors. The experience gained during the test will be very helpful in deploying 100G services in the future."

As an industry-leading transport vendor, Huawei is committed to providing operators worldwide with premium WDM/OTN, MSTP/Hybrid MSTP, and microwave products in addition to end-to-end transport solutions. According to consulting firm Ovum, Huawei leads the global optical network market, the WDM/OTN market, and the 40G market as of the second quarter of 2011.

"Most Innovative Mobile Broadband Deployment" Award Recognizes Huawei's Global Potential to Bridge Rural Digital Divides

[Austin, US, 18 October, 2011]: Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced the world's first LTE DD800 commercial network, as deployed by Huawei for Vodafone Germany, has been recognized with the 2011 RCR Wireless News Innovation Awards in the category of "Most Innovative Mobile Broadband Deployment."

This is a further endorsement of Huawei's abilities in respect of leading commercial LTE deployment. In June of this year, Huawei was honored with the "Wireless Network Infrastructure Innovation" award from Global Telecoms Business. Huawei's achievements received similar recognition with awards at the LTE Word Summit 2011.

Following release of the 800MHz (DD800) band from analogue TV, many operators opted for the "Digital Dividend" to meet escalating data demand from increasing smartphone usage. By significantly improving mobile broadband coverage services in rural areas not covered by broadband, the successful LTE DD800 SingleRAN based project between Huawei and Vodafone is the first scalable demonstration of LTE ‘s ability to bridge Digital Divides around the world.

Congratulating Huawei and Vodafone, Jeff Mucci, CEO & Editorial Director of RCR Wireless News, commented"The RCR Wireless News Mobile Innovation Awards recognize those having a material impact on our global mobile broadband industry and the economy as a whole. With multiple submissions, competition for an award in this category was especially fierce. However, the LTE DD800 commercial project submission was a clear indicator of the way in which Huawei and Vodafone are spearheading commercialization of LTE. We offer them many congratulations on a well deserved win."

David Wang, President of Wireless Network, stated Huawei's appreciation:"This award recognizes the joint endeavors of both Huawei and Vodafone. It evidences our commitment to becoming the best business partner for operators worldwide. We will work with global carriers to drive MBB success forward based on our innovation ability and leading advantage in the wireless field."

"Mag3D", the new program dedicated to the world of 3D on Orange TV

Orange and the company Troisième Œil Productions are partnering to launch a new program entirely dedicated to the world of 3D. As the first TV magazine on 3D in France, Mag3D is a monthly 26 minute program shot in three dimensions, offering a range of topics to inform, educate and entertain the viewer about 3D technology. 


The first show will air on 28 November on Orange TV’s channel 30, accessible to all Orange high-speed broadband customers who have High Definition TV (fiber optics, ADSL or satellite) and a 3D television and glasses. This magazine will also be available on the dailymotion 3D channel, on PC, mobile and on video-on-demand free of charge.


A real broadcasting benchmark in the world of 3D, viewers will find all the exciting information relating to this new technology including new film releases, sports events, documentaries, video games, "the making of", shows, exhibitions, music, concerts, the latest in High-Tech (screens, cameras, videos, phones)... as well as first-hand accounts of 3D experiences shared by guests on the show.

JT Selects Comverse ONE Converged BSS for Business Transformation

WAKEFIELD, Mass., Oct. 18, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Comverse, a global leader in BSS, mobile Internet and value-added services, announced today that JT, a leading operator based in the Channel Islands, has selected the Comverse ONE® Billing and Active Customer Management™ solution to power a significant business transformation that will enable it to increase operational effectiveness and business agility throughout its converged multiple-play portfolio. Replacing two legacy billing solutions and a number of specially tailored IT applications, Comverse ONE will provide JT with a fully converged BSS.


Dave Newbold, Chief Operations and Technology Officer at JT, said, "We operate in a highly competitive marketplace, and continually look to improve our products and services to satisfy our customers' requirements. To do this, JT needed to move to a converged billing and CRM solution that would support our growth ambitions. Comverse ONE's single-system approach to BSS convergence offers us the customer management, marketing and charging agility we were looking for, and also enables us to take advantage of new opportunities not only in the Channel Islands, but also as JT moves and expands into new markets."


Optimized for evolving technologies and convergent markets, Comverse ONE delivers flexible and powerful customer management, ordering, billing and revenue generation applications suitable for any market vertical: wholesale, enterprise and residential. As a single system, converged BSS streamlines business processes across the entire organization from CRM to billing, providing CSPs with the ability to enhance every aspect of the customer lifecycle — from acquisition through order management to charging and up-sell — in the most efficient manner.


"Around the world, profound changes in technology are transforming the way consumers and enterprises communicate and do business," said Lionel Chmilewsky, Senior Vice President, Head of Customer Facing Group at Comverse. "In this 'always-on' multi-service landscape, Comverse ONE, the industry's pre-eminent single-system converged BSS offering built around a unified data model, seamlessly addresses all aspects of convergence, bridging the network and IT for end-to-end flows that dramatically reduce complexity and integration points for heightened efficiency. Operators gain significant operational savings, a richer service portfolio and speedier time to market. We look forward to effectively helping JT meet the diverse needs of its varied customer base into the future."


Comverse is a global leader in converged billing. Comverse BSS solutions serve more than 200 service providers around the world supporting over 750 million active subscribers.

Supporting tomorrow’s requirements through a real-time platform

Paderborn (Germany), 18 October 2011: In a world where customer-centricity is paramount, focusing just on product differentiation will only lead to a short-term success. More than ever operators require a powerful communication channel to effectively reach the customer, since the focus on this aspect is crucial. Orga Systems’ solution operates across multiple channels and through intelligent notification delivery, allowing them to create a closer customer relationship through continuous communication in real-time. The solution is specifically designed for integration in convergent networks - a valuable add-on for real-time charging and billing systems.


Creating instant revenue opportunities
Leveraging Orga Systems’ real-time competence can assure the highest level of customer satisfaction. The solution offers a powerful communication platform for mass marketing campaigns or highly personalized one-to-one promotions, the built in real-time functionalities fuel direct customer engagement and lead to a boost of successful marketing activities and high revenue opportunities. Now operators worldwide have the benefit of using a real-time charging platform combined with real-time communication towards the end-user, leading to a boost of customer experience.


Customer loyalty anchored on customized solutions
Orga Systems’ real-time charging solutions unify advanced charging scenarios for all services across all subscriber segments on one single platform. This enables faster launch of new and differentiating services, attractive mobile broadband offerings, as well as real-time notifications and interaction. In addition to this, real-time convergent billing systems have to provide the flexibility, speed and real-time capabilities required to support new convergent business models. Convergent billing solutions are the only way to eliminate pre and postpaid silos and to quickly and efficiently roll out truly bundled services, up-sell and cross-promote services. This will improve customer experience and as well as customer loyalty at the same time.

New Nokia Facebook app connects customers to operators

Press Release, Nokia, Espoo, Finland – October 18, 2011


New Facebook app connects customers to operators



Self-care application from Nokia Siemens Networks uses social network to manage personal telecom services


Nokia Siemens Networks has launched a Facebook app that operators can use to allow people to personally manage their fixed and mobile telecom services. The new app enables customers to check their balance, browse and buy special offers and subscribe to services. In addition, customers can share their experience across their social network and get rewards for recommending services to friends. The app aims to offer an improved service by allowing operators to engage with customers where they spend their time online.


“The beauty of the Facebook app is that it engages with people on their preferred social networking site,” said Rick Centeno, head of business support systems (BSS) at Nokia Siemens Networks. “People spend more time on social networks than individual websites. With this Facebook app, Nokia Siemens Networks helps operators to connect with people in a familiar setting where they already spend their online time. It takes self-care to a new level.”


An April 2011 research report from Ovum, ‘Defining the Rules of Engagement for Customer Service in Social Media’ claimed that “social media represents a significant opportunity for enterprise customer service.”*


"Nokia Siemens Networks is presenting a refreshing end-to-end vision of how CSPs can better meet their customers' needs through self-care, while also reducing their costs and becoming more commercially agile", said Teresa Cottam, research director and founder, Telesperience. "We've seen other companies articulate parts of this vision, but few others - if indeed any others - can deliver this in its entirety today."


For operators that deliver a superior customer service, Nokia Siemens Networks’ Facebook app can amplify and publicize genuine leadership. People who share their experiences with friends, and also recommend services, can benefit from special rates and incentives from operators. Friends benefit from recommendations that help them to evaluate which service package will best suit their needs. The app can also provide instant access to account information such as prepaid and postpaid balance, recent call duration, cost and contact details – all within the familiar Facebook site.


“This first social network integration will enrich a wide range of existing operator processes such as convergent charging, self-care, campaign management, business analytics and customer experience management to improve customer experience in a very efficient way. The integration is based on Nokia Siemens Networks’ modular charging engine and integration framework,” said Centeno.


The application enhances Nokia Siemens Networks’ range of self-care portals - share@once - that facilitate direct interaction between operators and customers. The new Facebook app complements a mobile self-care app for smartphones and a web-based self-care portal that can already provide a simpler way to manage telecom services.


All three share@once self-care portals – for Facebook, smartphones and the web – are based on Nokia Siemens Networks’ modular and scalable charge@once unified platform**. The platform provides a unified view for operators of special offers, and charging and billing for all types of voice and data services in all networks, independent of whether it is a prepaid or postpaid scheme.


By providing different types of self-care portals, and a new opportunity for operators to interact with customers, share@once enhances Nokia Siemens Networks’ Customer Experience Management (CEM)*** portfolio. CEM provides insight into the factors affecting a customers’ experience to define and automate specific actions to make it better.