General

The Norwegian Post & Telcommunications Authority (NPT) recently released their annual telecom market report. Key mobile related take-aways show that total revenues are close to stabile with a small increase from the year before. Breaking down the numbers we see that voice (-11 %) and messaging (-4 %) revenues are decreasing year-over-year (YOY), whilst mobile data revenues are increasing (+2 %).

The biggest change is the increase in subscription revenues (+13 %), meaning that the migration of subscription types to bucket- and fixed prices are compensating for the decreased usage of traditional telecom voice & messaging services.

In other words the Norwegian mobile subscribers have in the last 3 years gone from volume based pricing to buckets, and now only two weeks ago TeliaSonera subsidiary, NetCom, introduced unlimited usage of voice and messaging (other operators, like Tele2, were quick to follow this). The introduction of unlimited in this case isn’t anything disruptive, since big buckets in reality have the same effect -but it will get the first operators some good PR. The alterations in the subscription models is a natural consequence of the fact that customer’s preferences have changed drastically with the adaptation rate of smartphones -to the point where data is the most important parameter. Despite this shift, the operators are managing to extract the same amount of revenue from their user bases as before! We could also say that there is a slight tendency towards an alteration of the traditional role of an operator. Being the sole communication providers is slightly weakening, whilst the role as mobile access provider is strengthening. In the UK new types of operators have emerged, like GiffGaff.

It is now estimated that around 75 % of the total Norwegian handset base are smartphones. This is an 10 % increase from the year before.

56 % of Consumer customers and 65 % of Business customers have generated data traffic, whilst 15 % of Consumer customers and 30 % of Business customers have at least 1 GB of data included in their subscriptions. These stats show the great potential for uptake and usage of mobile (smartphone) services and apps in Norway, but at the same time we also see that quite a big portion of smartphone users have never generated any data traffic -even though they have data included in their subscriptions. An indication that most phones now being sold are smartphones, but that some of the buyers aren’t accustomed to the added potential in their devices.

Roaming

Regarding international roaming there is an increase in usage across all three main telecom services compared to the year before. Again, data usage is by far the one with the greatest increase -over double the volume in 2012 (99 mill. MB) vs 2011 (43 mill. MB).

Since 2009 the Norwegian operators have managed cut their roaming costs substantially -generating more profit from roaming in 2012 than they have in many years. Since data usage also is the fastest growing parameter in the roaming scenario it is natural to think that (some) end users find it difficult to restrain themselves from using their smartphones as they have got accustomed to -also when being abroad. A good holiday tip is to bring an old phone with WiFi sharing/Personal hotspot functionality or a MiFi-router and purchase (and insert) a local prepaid SIM card that includes some kind of data bucket. Thereby you have a portable WiFi hotspot you can connect your phone to, but only pay local fees for the data usage :-)

All graphs and figures are courtesy of NPT
Sources:
Det norske markedet for elektronisk kommunikasjon 2012 [NO]
Presentasjon Det norske ekommarkedet 2012 [NO]
Tallgrunnlag ekomstatistikk 2013 [NO]

NetCom also state that the total OS distribution among their top ten listed handsets is 63 % iOS and 37 % Android.

Numbers in brackets = last month’s ranking. Source: NetCom & Telenor

The TI multi sensor chip

Here at Agens, we also like to experiment with new technology. We just recently got hold of the Texas Instruments CC2541 SensorTag development kit. What’s so cool with this system-on-a-chip, is the fact that it communicates via Bluetooth 4.0/LE, has a SDK and incorporates 6 (!) sensors: Temperature (IR & Ambient), Humidity, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Magnetometer & Barometer.

Just think of the endelss possibilities this chip gives in combination with an app on a mobile device. Health/Medical, Training/Sports, Toys, Education… Any good usage scenarios anyone?

Here are a couple of videos to get the imagination going:

Bluetooth Low Energy iPhone Rocket

Oakley Airwave Goggle

The Leap Motion Controller

Leap Motion is Kinect on steroids. It enables touchless interaction controlled only by what you allready posess: Your hands and fingers. Gesture/motion controllers are sure to be a way of interaction in the near future. Only by playing and experimenting, can we be prepared for tomorrow.

Painter Freestyle with Leap Motion

If you have a great idea, but keep contemplating on how to utilize or make the mobile service itself, we are happy to help. Just drop us a line. We’re nice people.

We are pleased to announce that we have signed an app development contract with both Tele 2 and Network Norway, two of the most prominent and interesting Telcos out there. Needless to say, we are really looking forward to collaborating with NwN and Tele 2. We share a lot of the same philosophy when it comes to product quality, and are already hard at work planning future-proof user experiences and mobile solutions for both companies.

For a while now we’ve been using scrum, an agile software development method, on some of our projects. That is, we’ve used what is commonly called “scrum-but”. When we started out, we stuck very closely to the principles and procedures of scrum, but quickly – just weeks or months after starting – we found we had to tailor the method to fit the needs of the different projects. Along the way, we tweaked and changed things (sometimes even coming close to using a waterfall model, which is antithesis to agile development).

After more than a year, few things remained of our initial Scrum ideals. We were still using a task board, daily stand-up meetings and retrospectives; but we weren’t time-boxing, doing story estimates, calculating velocity, having the customer prioritize work on a task-by-task basis. We didn’t really know what to call it anymore, but it worked pretty well for us.

Then we started looking into Kanban. Some of it felt very familiar, since we were already doing the same things out of necessity – such as kaizen, the regular improvement of the work process. Other things we’d been doing, but not consistently – such as visualizing workflow. Most importantly, the method gives you permission to modify and change things until they work; it’s about taking your existing process and improving it.

Right now we’re in the middle of transferring one major project to Kanban, and looking at two more. It’s an interesting experience, and so far the team is very enthusiastic about it. We ask a lot of questions, try to work out how we want this thing to work, and try to find the best tools for the job. Right now, it looks like we might have to find a new tool for our online kanban board (the old one, JIRA/Greenhopper, is not built for the type of flexibility Kanban requires). We’ve looked at our work flow, visualized it, and made a few minor improvements; but we’re taking care not to try to change everything at once.

Small steps, gradual change, and the ability to track progress.

We are happy to announce that the VG+ application has been awarded the “Best Paid App” during the Cross Media Awards in Vienna. This year’s XMA Awards is WAN IFRA’s (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers) own award to honor the best news app solution worldwide. And VG+ won it!

The jury consisted of gurus like Mario Garcia and Roger Fidler from Reynolds Journalism Institute in USA. Mario Garcia himself has this to say about the VG+ solution:

“VG of Norway gives us everything we wish to have in an iPad news app: The brand extension that takes us to the familiar, with the extras that exploit the potential of this great new platform; great use of imagery; simple, distinctive design; multimedia; multigenre; in my view, BEST of show.”

VG+ beat a great deal of international newspapers lik Sunday Times, Die Welt and Bloomberg News. The app scored better on all jury criteria- both content, consistency in design, integration of components and business model.

Here at Agens, we consider this a great honor. We are thankful that the jury enjoyed VG+ as much as we enjoy making it. However, there is still quite a lot of progression to be made- and the drawing board is full of ideas. We are thrilled to work on such an exiting project together with VG, the most vibrant newspaper in Norway when it comes to adapting new technology.