As the digital economy expands with the rise of LTE, operators continuously seek innovation to better serve customers and compete.

The UN Broadband Commission has released two reports covering the growth of mobile broadband.

SMEs in emerging markets will become more analogous with those in developed markets during the next 5 years; they will rely much more on Internet connectivity, and will demand better and more-affordable options for both fixed and mobile broadband.

”Ruggedish” smartphones is a global trend – and traditional rugged computer makers are best equipped to supply truly rugged smartphones and tablets.

Mobile solutions have a huge potential to drastically increase the efficiency of field workers and save big money for companies in a range of industries. However, the implementation of mobile solutions is filled with pitfalls.

As data becomes the main focus for many mobile operators, there is an on-going debate about the future of traditional batch based billing for post-paid and Intelligent Network (IN) pre-paid charging infrastructures.

Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s handset business has made headlines across the industry, but it is highly likely that the deal’s impact will be felt the most in emerging markets.

The choice of antennas for base stations rarely receives any attention.

Connecting five billion people to the Internet is a pretty lofty ambition, so it would take some serious clout to bring such a goal to fruition.

While network optimisation is an area that operators are keen to explore, there is an equally strong focus on monetising traffic that is already on the network.

As the telecoms industry has evolved, businesses have become much more multi-dimensional.

The future of network validation and optimisation is in the lab. Think about the plane industry: 100 years ago no one was using flight simulators to build and fly planes. Try for a minute to imagine the A380 being commercialised without going through intensive flight simulation. Would you board that plane?

It is well known that mobile networks are ‘leapfrogging’ established networks in emerging markets. Take-up of mobile voice and, more recently, mobile broadband quickly overtook that of fixed services among citizens of most emerging countries because of the added convenience, and lower deployment costs, of mobile networks. 

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) market continues to grow rapidly. Analyst IHS iSuppli is predicting that the number of LTE users worldwide will hit 198.1 million in 2013 before surging to 1 billion users in 2016.

Emerging markets have long been pioneers in terms of mobile money. While adoption has more widespread in certain markets, across the sector there is a lot of interest in mobile money offerings from operators, financial institutions and regulators.

There are many different ways for an organisation to reduce its carbon footprint and ‘go green.’ However, few solutions will deliver the hoped-for results if you haven’t done your homework, read the fine print and put in place the foundations necessary to leverage your investments.

The idea of everyday devices becoming smart once conjured up visions of sci-fi fantasy. One popular concept became a reality as far back as 1999, when the first interactive fridge that alerted owners to items that needed replacing was prototyped in Sweden. But with the recent explosion of smart technology, the possibility of an ultra-connected world powered by the internet of things now seems nothing short of an inevitability.

When we think of emerging markets, we often tend to think they are behind the times, busy playing catch-up with developed nations. While this may in fact be the case for traditional fixed telecoms infrastructure, it is certainly not true for today’s extensive mobile networks. In fact, when it comes to mobile data plans and charging, developed nations can learn a lot from emerging markets.

At the start of this week, Developing Telecoms looked at the importance of real-time monitoring, with a focus on customer retention and roaming. As we continue to explore the subject, we look at how targeted advertising relies on the accurate customer profile that real-time monitoring can create. In addition, a closely-monitored network can drive down the SIM-swapping endemic to emerging markets.

Collecting and analysing data about customer usage is becoming the standard for operators in all markets, as it allows them to follow and respond to customer habits. They now have access to a lot of customer information, although it may not be as complete as they’d like – particularly in emerging markets where there are a lot of prepaid customers so there aren’t personally identifiable usage patterns as there are in developed markets.

With the advent of smartphones, an interesting dynamic is playing out between SMS and OTT across the telecoms industry. In developed markets, operators are unhappy about the growing dominance of smartphone-based services, but it’s a very different story in emerging markets.