In reading the reviews of the telecom year, I see both iPhone and Android pop up as two of the most significant changes on the telecom industry.  I think it's important that we stop and think a moment.

• On the iPhone: I already have music on my phone, I can do email, I have a slick address book interface, I have a browser, and thanks to Spinvox I've had voice to text for several years, and there have been touch sensitive screens on the market for years.  So what's new or innovative about this phone?  Apart from the Apple logo and the marketing dollars spent making operators' customers around the world a little more aware of mobile data services, little is new or innovative.  Is the iPhone significant for most customers or the people working in operators or suppliers? Not really, just like the LG Prada (launched with far less marketing budget), it helps us along the way to making the phone experience better for data services. 
• On Android: there are many mLinux OS (Operating System) suppliers out there, the Linux OS maybe free but the devil is in the integration; hence why innovative start-ups such as A la Mobile (www.a-la-mobile.com) have developed a "BIOS" (Built-In Operating System), just like in PCs, to manage this problem. Having a big brand to create yet another development community may help.  However, isn't Linux open?  So shouldn't it be far easier for apps to be developed than on a closed OS?

In my opinion both iPhone and Android are significant if you're either: On the 'investment banker' side of the business, trying to find investment areas such as 'handset OS' that software companies will want to pay big bucks for and hence provides the opportunity to get a cut of the transaction.  Or in trade magazines, as such topics provide ample opportunity for writing column inches.  From my perspective there have been much more significant changes in the industry through 2007, that will have an impact on the majority of us in the industry, not just the press or financial guys, but customers and the people working in the telcos and their suppliers.

• The Application Network Interface (ANI): BT's 21C SDK is a good example.  Here operators around the world are actively examining how to expose capabilities from their network to encourage third parties and to monetize capabilities within their networks. For example, allowing registered applications to know when a customer churns and does not take their number to avoid situations described in this article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/26/facebook_sued_for_missending_text_messages/.  There are three broad groupings of services enabled through the ANI, innovation within operator branded apps, innovation in co-branded applications, e.g. allowing a Facebook app to purchase contact on the operator's portal or enable a conference call, and then the long tail where the vast array of capabilities across communications, billing, content and context could be exposed to third party applications.  2007 witnessed the first steps by several operators; this will grow and will fundamentally change the operators' position in the services layer. 
• 2007 was the year the industry as a whole finally got its head around the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) and SDP (Service Delivery Platform) situation.  The CDMA operators (Verizon and Sprint) with their choice of VoIP over EVDO had to choose a standards-based scalable IP service control layer, and IMS provided the solution.  On the fixed side of the business we're still seeing the scalability issue of IMS versus soft-switch solutions yet to run its course.  For the SDP, it's really a re-use of SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) deployed in enterprises.  In financial services their IT systems must have zero downtime (not five 9s), with transaction times in microseconds (not milliseconds), with transactions per hour far greater than in telephone networks.  Some enterprises have passed telecoms in their requirements of IT systems, so telecom can ride their learning curve, and so the SDP has started to enter the plans of many operators, in conjunction with the ANI.  In essence the SOA enables operators to take an incremental approach, yet avoid some of the silo issues.
• Advertising finally broke out of its hype-cycle and got focused, with the launch of Blyk in the UK, but more importantly the trials by operators on their portal and more focused experimentation such as ad supported gaming.  This will likely represent 10% of revenue within 10 year as discussed in an earlier weblog entry. 

Back in September I did an entry on the IDA's IN2015 (Intelligent Nation 2015) initiative.  Quoting from their website:  "The Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure (Next Gen NII) is Singapore's new digital super-highway. Next Gen NII comprises complementary wired and wireless networks to ensure Singaporeans enjoy seamless connectivity.  The wired broadband network or Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) will deliver ultra-high broadband symmetric speeds of 1Gbps and above, to all homes, offices and schools, while the Wireless Broadband Network (WBN) will offer pervasive connectivity around Singapore." 

The Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) RFP was released on 11th Dec.  Of note is the clear separation of the passive infrastructure (NetCo) from the OpCo that runs the active components.  RSPs (Retail Service Providers) buy wholesale services from the OpCo, and the OpCo rents passive connectivity (fibre) from the NetCo.  It's similar to the UK model where BT Openreach provides the copper, BT Wholesale puts DSL modems on either end and then sells wholesale services to the broadband ISPs (Internet Service Providers).  However, there are two critical differences:

• The copper infrastructure is already there, most home-owners are already connected so there is little build requirement on BT Openreach rather maintenance; and
• The fibre infrastructure may not be point to point, rather use a passive splitter (point to multi-point) to mitigate the financial burden of the fibre access (about 80% of the total network build cost).

The need to build a new infrastructure and the potential complexity of the fibre access is going to require the NetCo and OpCo to work very closely.  It's going to take sophisticated regulation, unless the NetCo builds out a fibre infrastructure with virtually 100% coverage.  Given Starhub (already providing 100 Mbps to customers) and SingTel (will depend on its role, but lets assume its competitive) are not going away anytime soon, this makes the majority of the infrastructure redundant in a perfect competition model.  Even with a S$750m grant, a quick back of the envelope calculation shows that the NetCo will need to wait a long time for payback (>10 years) and is wholly dependent on the performance of the NetCo which does not shoulder any of this financial risk.

Of note in the UK, BT has launched a wholesale product called GEA (Generic Ethernet Access) with rates up to 25 Mbps, definitely enough to provide HDTV and high speed internet access.  So the OpCo and NetCo are bundled together which mitigates some of the operational challenges in rolling-out GPON infrastructure.

In my experience Singapore has a vibrant and extremely competitive mobile market with just 3 competitors.  A simple option could be to license a 3rd broadband service provider to compete with Starhub and SingTel to replicate the success achieved in mobile communications.