Wireless Informatics Forum

WIF has joined members Innopath and WDSGlobal in publishing a 16-page report to the deployment of FOTA (firmware over the air) in EMEA. 

The report is free to download HERE

‘Redefining FOTA deployment in EMEA’ argues that the business case for FOTA in the US and Japan cannot be mirrored verbatim in EMEA.

This is largely due to the difference in relationship between OEMs, operators and end-users; in the US and Japan, operators exert tighter control over their OEM suppliers and, ultimately, the supply chain to the end-user. In EMEA, networks see far greater use of independently supplied handsets, grey-market, SIM-free or churned handsets. As such it has become harder for organizations to identify and directly control the management of a handset and its performance on the network. In addition, handset subsidies and high-street price wars have increased the importance of RoI modeling; demanding organizations assess the impact of the technology – both positively and negatively on AMPU (Average Margin Per User).

Here’s an extract of the exec summary…..

It is this report’s belief that in order to gain maximum market traction, and to meet the demands of mobile organizations in EMEA, FOTA must mature and adapt to meet these very real and unique requirements. For example, the area of business process integration must now be considered a fundamental part of any FOTA deployment. The FOTA ‘sale’ has typically been a technical one, with very little commentary or consultancy provided to define best practice for integration within existing customer care channels and organizational resources. Such process issues are of great importance with organizations acutely aware that a FOTA rollout touches multiple departments (product management, testing, IT, marketing, partner management, terminal management, customer care etc). Until now, such considerations have been hugely undervalued despite
having such an enormous impact on the user experience.

When industry body OTAFF conducted its FOTA Acceleration study (2006), consideration of the user experience was one of the areas singled out for improvement. The same study also suggested that for FOTA to meet organizations’ needs, the industry must drive business model creation with compelling RoI modeling and reduced cost of ownership. Allowing organizations to lower their capex investment in FOTA through a hosted delivery model, for example, will increase accessibility and foster greater experimentation of the technology.

The market for FOTA in EMEA is on the cusp of an explosion, with organizations starting to explore
the technology’s wider business benefits and ability to both bug-patch and drive end-user revenue. This report aims to offer a description of how FOTA must be redefined to ensure cost effective deployment and integration with existing user network resources and processes.

http://www.wirelessinformaticsforum.org/_downloads/Redefining_FOTA_in_EMEA.pdf