Category: Telecom

Tomi Ahonen writes: “Consider that voice calls for the majority of UK users – prepay (voucher) customers declined over the past year by 28%. Voice calls by postpay (contract) customers declined by 22% last year. But over the same time SMS text messaging grew by 43% ! The UK now averages over 6 text messages per day ! That is rapidly catching up with world leaders where in South Korea they average 10 SMS per day per phone subscriber, Singapore averages 12 per day and the Philippines average 15 SMS per day. The European average is under 2 SMS per subscriber per day (and American averages are still near the one half text message per cellphone subscriber per day rate).”

Thomas has an amazingly detailed study on mobile use in Kenya.

Ajit Jaokar writes about the four holy cows. “which I think are not so sacrosanct on reflection. Inbuilt in these ideas is the belief that the Mobile Data Industry is a different incarnation of the Internet. So, here are the four principles, which we take for granted today, but are severely limiting the industry.”

– The obsession with Mobile Youth
– User interface(UI) is the key factors for success
– Quality of service(QOS) is a critical factor
– The Mobile Data Industry is different from the Internet

The Economist writes about a paper by Robert Jensen, which has the story of how mobiles helped the Kerala fishermen increase incomes and pay for the mobiles:

Fishermen’s profits rose by 8% on average and consumer prices fell by 4% on average. Higher profits meant the phones typically paid for themselves within two months. And the benefits are enduring, rather than one-off. All of this, says Mr Jensen, shows the importance of the free flow of information to ensure that markets work efficiently. Information makes markets work, and markets improve welfare, he concludes.

WSJ writes:

Sonopia Corp. allows any organization or club to start a wireless company “in 15 minutes or less” online. The company, based in Menlo Park, Calif., has signed up nearly 900 organizations to create their own service, with relevant features, news and content for members of their respective groups.

Sonopia helps each organization design custom phones based on existing handset models from major manufacturers, and it helps the groups lease network access from Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, to carry phone calls and data. Sonopia also manages monthly billing and customer service.
…
Most of the micro-niche providers aren’t in it for the money — and that’s a good thing, considering they only get about 3% to 8% of the revenue from monthly service plans. The rest goes to Verizon and Sonopia. Instead, most of the groups use the service as a self-sustaining way to promote themselves or their causes and keep members or customers engaged.

VentureBeat has an article by Ram Shriram about the US market, but it applies equally well to the Indian market:

Wireless devices, meanwhile remain stuck in the walled gardens.

The same goes for applications, services and protocols. Opening wireless broadband to new market entrants with open devices, open software and open IP services is critical to continued innovation in new devices, new services and new mobile web applications coming out of Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

Similarly, to promote innovation in services and applications for consumers in the wireless world, a better model is needed than the current status quo. A key ingredient to change this is that competition should be fostered.

Hampus Jakobsson writes:

Mobile phones will increasingly resemble platforms, but no one in the manufacturing part of the value chain will want a new Wintel, i.e. a singular platform. The manufacturer-operator battle is clear and a dividing line exists between the two the players above this line (operators and service providers) want all handsets to be the same for their applications, services, advertisements, etc. The players below (the handset OEM) dont want to become too platformized and end up like set-top-box manufacturers (I love asking people what the brand or even manufacturer of their set-top box is. Many answer TiVo or some other non-manufacturer; little knowing or caring about that it is built in Taiwan or China.

The way forward: handset OEMs are either building services or service platforms of their own, or are creating a flexible white label solution for third parties. Look at Nokia Ad Service, Content Discoverer as well as Motorolas Screen3. Rumors say that Google is having close talks with LG and Samsung, two hardware centric manufacturers, who should watch out for platformization. Why would Motorola not just use uiOne and why does Three remove the Nokia Active Standby? Because being able to enable third parties to monetize the mobile platform, but keeping control of the user experience will be a promising post sales revenue stream.

mocoNews.net writes about a study of mobile surfing habits in the US context:

Once users figure out they can search theyre likely to become power users. Put another way, users who dont use the mobile Web naturally dont know about or need mobile search. So, its up to the operators to encourage users to do both by introducing cheaper data rates and educating users about why (and how) they should use mobile search in the first place.

The real shocker is the overwhelming popularity of Internet search engines. Operators shouldnt give up trying to deliver search services under their own brand; they have to try harder. Users who search on their mobiles are likely repeating their PC search habits, and will continue to do so until operators can show them an alternative. Its a nascent market and there is plenty of room for made-for-mobile search engines and services. The burden is on operators and their white label partners to earn their place. As always, the best user experience will win in the end.

Ajit Jaokar discusses how should mobile operators integrate third parties into their network: “My view is: in an IP world, as the Mobile Internet mirrors the Internet, the Operator should focus on the core of the network and leave the edge of the network to third parties. Specifically, this means identify the elements that can be performed ONLY in the core and then abstract them through APIs. This approach gets us away from the dichotomy of the pipe vs. no pipe. It also means that the Operator retains control.”

Chetan Sharma provides an update: “# 2006 was a great year for mobile data. Revenues from mobile data were up in all major regions and for all major carriers with data contributing double digit percentage to overall revenues in most cases. The overall subscriptions rose to approximately 2.7B and we should be crossing 3B by the end of 2007. The wireless industry is on its way to gain the quickest billion subscribers within the next 3 quarters. Japan led the way with almost $20B in annual mobile data revenues. US and China were next with $15.8B and $9.2B respectively.”