Study: The advent of MVNOs ( Part I)

A Mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) offers mobile voice and data services without owning any spectrum or infrastructure. Basically it leases network from a Mobile network Operator (MNO). It uses the leased capacity to sell retail services to consumers under its own brand name leveraging assets such as a strong brand, loyal customer base, exclusive content or an extensive distribution channel. At one extreme the MVNO can adopt as “pure reseller” position, where in it re-brands MNO’s service using its own brand name and sells it through its distributor channels. On the other hand, it could adopt a “pure MVNO” position, providing value added elements in its offering. The decision to adopt a given business model is governed by several factors including the targeted scale if business, level of in house telecom expertise, extent of initial investment the MVNO is willing to make and the level of risk the MVNO is willing to undertake.

The schematic given above is a representation of the US MVNO markets.

The earliest MVNO in the US market was Virgin Mobile and Qwest, who had their processes and platforms to complement the MNO network. They did this by either purchasing platforms or operating them in-house or through dedicated partnerships. At the next level with multiplication in MVNOs, the market started migrating to parties who could provide relevant BSS/OSS processes and platforms.These service providers whose core competence was the platform and they build the mobile services around this platform are referred to as the Mobile Virtual Network Enablers (MVNEs).

With increase in Market complexity, there emerged a class of Mobile Virtual Network Aggregators who acted as intermediaries between multiple MNOs, handset providers and back end platform providers with the MVNOs. Hence these were the experts in the field who served to reduce risk and time to market and lower the risk profile of launching an MVNO.

In saturated and high mobility markets, with excess capacity, MNOs have a choice of acquiring retaail consumers to fill up the network or filling up the network on whole-sale basis to a MVNO reseller, or a combination of both. The decision should/is influenced by the idea of maximizing Average Margin per Minute (AMPM). The AMPM is determined by factors such as
1. Price charged per minute
2.Subscriber cquisition costs
3. Costs of serving a customer (Cash Cost per user CCPU). The CCPU depends upon network related costs and other non network related costs.
As the markets mature, the AMPM shrinks due to increasing price competition, increasing acquisition costs, increasing costs of providing servicing and support and other factors such as change in mix of services, loss in share of high margin services etc. In such situations, the MNOs may find that AMPM asociated with wholesale minutes is higher than their averages. In addition to that, there could be niche, smaller markets, where the MNO may consider an investement to be unviable (given its operations). MVNOs could be used to address those specific niche markets and consumer segments.

Highly penetrated markets with limited competition between mobile network operators may lead to a situation where some customer segments are likely to be "underserved" in specific aspects of mbile experience. The dissatisfaction could come from either poorly tailored products and services or other brand intangibles. This is a classic case of short comings of the "One Size Fits all" strategy --> MNOs have scale benefits and lower operating costs but miss out on the Customer satisfaction bit.

Considerations for user-interface design on Mobiles and Hand helds

The "smart"ness of devices is a direct derivative of its functions, content and the multitude of uses it can be subjected to. Phones especially are now Cameras, PDAs, Gaming consoles, Browsing points, Navigation consoles, Social Networking devices, Music Juke boxes and more: all this rolled into one. However, the User Interface is the platform which integrates all these uses for the user in a neat package. UI was a lower order consideration element till not so long ago. However the UI today is increasingly becoming a differentiator in the Telecom space. Smart UIs take some smart thinking and have an elemnt of intutiveness built in to create the user "wow" effect. Here's listing a few of my thoughts on UI designs:

1. Know your customer first: The first aspect of any UI is in terms of who is using it and for what purpose. This is critical in terms of adding the value add ons to the UI. Normally, a lot of back end research goes to zero down on users and usages. The UI then has to be customized for the particular user profile. For example: Gaming and Music can be supported on the same software versions (e.g S 60 for Nokia), but the UI has to be customized for a gaming freak versus a music listener.

2. Top Down in design: The UI design and development should begin from the fully loaded version instead of the base version. The functions and apps should be in a modular format, which can be removed from the fully loaded version to lighten it up for lower versions.
Examples of Modular formats: SMS + voice module, FM + MP3 Module, MP4 + Video Player module, Music Module(supports all music formats), Gaming Module, Navigation Module, Internet Browsing, RSS feeds module, Calendars and Organiser module, other apps.
This is also important from device memory and selection of relevant hardware and chipsets perspective.

3. The case for shortcuts--> Content/Context Specificity: If the device is for a particular use, then there should be hotkeys or shortcut keys on the panels or the UI to enable a one click access to the function. Normally phones have one key access to music, camera, internet etc. This establishes and supports the USP by customizing your UI around specific content/context.

4. Screen View: A judicious use of the small screen size is a high priority. Craming it up with too much information could reduce readability. (I have never managed to read those "X" line "how to" menus that keep popping up on the screen). In devices that need to support RSS feeds, it is important to balance the view in terms of visibility/readibility versus blocking out everything else in the background.

5.Scroll Conservation:It is essential that the main menu and the subsequent ones be customized so that the content viewing doesnot require a scroll down! Many users find the act of scrolling down on a menu view to be irritating. It also means that the menu is not sure what they are looking for in the first place and is not able to provide the required info in one screen.

6. Click Conservation: Similarly, the act of many clicks into menus, sub menus, prompts, functions and sub functions etc is avoidable. A few UIs require 6 or more (even 10 in exterem cases) clicks for the user to access a particular point in the system. You are clearly telling the user to sort your mess by navigation his way into your UI. There is no intutiveness and short route to the functions he so desires. It also shows that you dont know what your user is using your device for. A S 60 UI navigation path is 900 rows in lenght and some of these paths are 6 - 10 clicks long. The 900 statistic shows a diffuse focus in terms of device --> customer integration and the 6-10 click path shows UI inability to intuitively map its usage.

7. Intuitive Design: The intuitiveness of design is probably culture/ language/ region dependent. However there is a strong case of integrating user requirements with the UI and hardware of the device. (e.g: After a call to a new number, imagine one click "Save" option to "add to contacts". On the other hand, imagine the path Options--> save as --> add to contacts. That is "one click" too many).

8. Energy Saving Options: Screens such as QVGA and TFT can be harsh on power. A UI should be able to switch off / stand by to save on power drainage when not in use for "x" minutes. Similarly, it should be able to close the apps which are open and are not being used in favour of conserving battery life.

9. Touch: A touch based UI needs to allow room for the "touch". (That in fact necessitates 3 inch screens to accomodate for the fingers). The idea is not to cramp the screen with multitude of options and less space making the touch experience a very tedious one.

10. Use of smart animation: Smart animation to browse through the screens creates a pleasing effect. However, the animation if there is has to be easy and light on the device memory resources.

11. Customizable front screen: The option to customize the front screen (is already present in high end devices) is to be given to the consumer. The idea is to give him a direct access to the apps /functions he uses 80% of the times. The option to pick up the "Favoruites" can also be provided to the UI if the consumer so wishes it.

These are a few generic principles to be kept in mind in UI designing for Handheld devices and mobiles. The ultimate objective is to make the browsing and navigation experience on the device to be a "Wow".

LTE, WiMAX: Co-Existance versus Winning

Making its loyalties clear, for the first time in about 5 years, Nokia has averred LTE to be the future 4G technology standards over WiMAX. In an interview to Financial Times, Nokia EVP (New Markets) Anssi Vanjoki, fore-beared WiMAX to be Betamax of the 4G technology standards. His remarks were the most dismissive by Nokia of WiMax to date. Nokia has previously been perceived as taking care not to be too critical of WiMax, while Nokia still has a seat on the board of the WiMax Forum.
Sony Betamax and VHS were also involved in a war of video format technology standards in 1970s and 80s, which was eventually won by VHS setting the technology standard.

The Finnish company is betting the 4G wireless standard LTE - Long Term Evolution - will dominate the mobile world by 2015 and WiMax will be the big loser.Nokia’s claim is the first in an open forum and comes after the Finnish Phone maker has had stakes in both the technologies. Nokia went as far as developing the first prototype of WiMAX based internet tablets, which were subsequently never put to production. The telecommunication industry is increasingly getting fragmented into the LTE and the WiMAX camps.

While I have covered WiMAX and LTE in a few other blog posts as well, I fail to see why one technology must beat the other in the future technology perspective. Both technologies may be fulfilling the same objective of high speed data carriers, but the technologies per se are based on very different platforms. LTE with its greater carpet area will allow users to access high speed data from a bigger geography. It has an able back up in terms of the 3G/2G network. If there is a hole in the LTE, users will tend to fall back on the 3G/2G backbones, there by not breaking the connection. The ability to leverage on the 3G/UMTS infrastructure decreases the initial costs.

WiMAX on the other hand, depends on line of sight which limits the geographical spread. However, it’s enhanced features such as security and multi-bands make it a huge bet in the enterprise segment. It will essentially replace WiFi as the office standard. Being a high value segment, the profitability of WiMAX could be expected to be higher that LTE. From the consumer perspective, WiMAX has a low operating cost, reducing the per unit cost. However, unlike the LTE, WiMAX has a high initial cost of infrastructure installation.

On the whole, while 80% of the telecom footprint will be LTE, WiMAX’s 20% will be more profitable and versatile. LTE on the other hand will be mostly voice/data based services.

I guess, we will have to wait and watch how this space develops. It will be only good for the consumers if both technologies are allowed to take their own course to offer the best of 4G technologies to the consumer. The future ought to be decided by the consumer more than anyone else.

Twitter's first step at monetization of social networks

Monetization happens to be a tag in my blogs because of the simple reason that i have written a lot about "How to monetize social networks?" in ample.

Twitter's first attempt to monetize its huge and unique base of tweets is an interesting one in terms of the effort being a coordinated one between itself, Microsoft and Federated Media. Essentially the idea is to collate the tweets of business executives and other insightfull and business related tweets for interested people to follow. In essence it is following the top business executives on Twitter. It is called Exectweets.com . The website is essentially a collection of tweets from top business heads on Twitter like Virgin’s Richard Branson, eBay’s Pierre Omidyar, Digg’s Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose, Twitter’s own Evan William and yes, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg amongst a whole others.

The partners are fairly interesting in the terms of background competencies. While Twitter, champions conversational media, Federated Media is versatile in the conversational mode of advertising and Microsoft is one of the largest users of online advertising. Thus the Twitter promoted website exectweets.com may be an online branding/advertising solution for Microsoft. The neat part is that Microsoft is able to address its cream audience: the business executives through this venture. Twitter would in the back end have a revenue arrangement with Microsoft, though the details are missing at this point of time.

Business heads who want to get into exectweets.com, as a branding opportunity, need to follow@exectweets and the team at exectweets would decide whether to add the twitter stream to their website or not.

Thus this is a convergence of social media vehicle with a very precise audience and a large marketeer. One interesting alliance and effort to follow up.

Microsoft:"Apple" Scare

One of the general principles of advertising is not to mention your competitor by name in your ads. That limits the field of your offering and also gives the feeling tht you are acknowledging the competitor as a benchmark (to Consumers/in products) or a threat (to yourself). This is especialy true for Market leaders.It is in this context that Microsoft's Lauren ad has raised a few eye brows. After all, Microsoft retains a whopping 90% market share in the OS markets world over.It shows a young woman, Lauren shopping for a under $1000 laptop with a 17 inch screen and mentions Mac by name and feaatures the Mac Store. The ad is essentially about Bargain hunting (a reference to recessionary times) and comes up with a $699 price tag for the 17 inch Hewlett Packard laptop that Lauren wants. Watch the ad here.

The swipe at Apple may look like a reaction to losses registered in numbers of Windows users who have switched away from cheap PCs to Macs, and tiny losses in market share to Mac! However, it has more to do with other aspects in which Microsoft and Apple compete in the world markets. The ad is probably a reaction to the following that Apple has been trouncing Microsoft at:
1. The Music Space (with iTunes and iPods)
2. The Smartphone space
3. The Apps store space
4. Apple's positioning campaign redefining PCs and Macs and adding the "cool" quotient. (View here)

It starts in the Music space, where Zune (Microsoft's answer to the iPod) has made no headway in gaining market share from the iPod. Zune features down in the matching the "sexy" iPod looks and iPod trounces it when it is combined with the iTunes. (Read the comparison here)

Microsoft's famous forbearance "errors" plagues it in the smartphone space as well. When Apple announced the iPhone in January 2007, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer infamously dismissed the iPhone as too expensive. to quote Steve Ballmer in the April 2007, USA Today interview, "“There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share”. “No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get."As it has turned out in the 2 years since, Apple has come from 0 to 10.4% in smartphone OS space, where as Microsoft has been at the 11.8 - 12.4% for sometime now. Covered in a previous blog: http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/mobile-operating-systems-by-market.html

To complement its smartphone growth and popularity, Apple already has the first and currently most popular (and "profitable"???) business in distribution of applications world over. This is something that Microsoft has not ventured in though one may have expected it to be a pioneer in this field given its technology advantage. http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/apple-software-services-as.html

Apart from stiff competition, the popularity of the iPhone presents another problem for Microsoft: like the iPod, it’s introducing Apple technology to millions of Windows users. Among the factors in the rise in the Mac’s market share, the iPod “halo effect” cannot just be ruled out. Positioning oneself as a cool technology provider versus, Microsoft's "straight jacketed, pin robbed, stiff and official" is where Apple is also making astatement with consumers. In face of that, "Lauren" could get nastier at taking swipes at Apple! Steve Balmer is already at it talking tough about overpriced Macs! (So he’s exploiting the bad economy with an ad like “Lauren” to depict Macs as an impractical choice. )

Cost advantage may be good speaking point in these recessionary times, but with Apple's kind of brand equity building up steadily, one wonders if Microsoft is really the cocky confident it once was.

Providing better mobile browing experience

(Been off for a while now on a vacation and other work. This is my first post after 10 days and concerns mobile internet experience.)

One of my earlier posts covered the proliferation of mobile devices as the window to internet to an increasing number of people around the world. http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/daily-addictionmobile-internet.html
This covered the stats and the emerging trends in mobile internet. As a mobile internet user, my experience with mobiles has been very frequent although the quality of experience is certainly not the best. Data transfer speeds in India are not all that great and 3G is still some way off. However, one other aspect where i face a problem in terms of usage experience of mobile internet, is page loading. This has to do with cookies, frames and other technical aspects which in general make a broadband experience great but a mobile experience relatively weak. Certain sections of pages dont load and this is especially true for commercial/business driven/business sites. Try booking a train/flight ticket from your mobile to experience the problems and hitches.

The question that i had posed to an open group of experts/commentators of Web 2.0 (a Linkedin group) was: How can websites be customized for a better mobile device based browsing experience?

I had a fairly wide range of answers, which i am documenting in this blog post in the form of views. It is necessary to realise that these views may not be mutually exclusive thoughts, in fact, they are quite inter-related to each other at various parts of the delivery chain.

1. View 1: The most popular answer (referred by Lee Curtis / George Lehman /Rachin Kapoor) that emerged from a web developers perspective was the use of CSS styled xHTML, a tool that semantically describes presentation lay outs separately from the content. CSS is useful in presenting the fully loaded site on a lap top/desk top, where as the HTML presents a small aand effective, quick loading and light mechanism for mobile phones. Thus the accessibility features are customised according to the screen and the device and streamlines site indexing more effectively.
(View 1 extended by Kabari Hendrick/ Nial Kennedy) While websites use the CSS/xHTML tools, user agent determination techniques travel from the cloud/net to the access window and determine the agent and direct the CSS/xHTML for suitability of the download (in terms of Lite or Heavy). This happens within a very short interval and doesnot extend the download time significantly.

2. View 2: While view 1, is about back end web site compatibility with device, the second view (by Andy Foote and Vincent Graux), is about how hardware evolution is taking care of the fundamental resstiction of a small screen, by creating larger and richer interfaces. The case in point being netbooks, which were born out of the fusion of browsing experience and mobility.

The analogy here is creation of a bridge across a chasm. One side (devices) is starting to build smaller and mobility centric devices to bridge the chasm. The other side (website / internet / programming) is trying to do the same by customizing the presentation formats on the websites.

View 3: While the earlier views were hardware and software based, this view, forwarded by Jim Vezina , Poorna Kedar and Gianluiggi Cuccureddu is business focussed and thus the most relevant. This advocates, the understanding of web traffic i.e the reason why people would visit some website. Thus having identified the raison d' etre of the website, the experience has to be tailored. For example a website, which is e-commerce led, should see to it that the payment portals are easy to load and secure and provide the relevant user experience without getting into elaborate frames and pages etc as far as a mobile experience is concerned. A lap top experience can be the full monty as it is. A mailing site, needs to see to it that the mobile experience includes written text content provided to the user without too many buttons, frames and others. A social networking site probably needs to go a little bit more in terms of pictures and videos and nothing else. This can be done through the standard View 1 and View 2 tools as described earlier. Or further yet, if required, have two different web sites, one for regular users and the other for mobile users if your traffic is so profiled ( Rick Dane)!

Other contributors: John Rodrigues, Dipak Dave, Wallace Jackson

Operator Dumb Pipe Syndrome

In the war of convergence, the eco-system is expected to favour the species which collaborates and coordinates the most with other stakeholders out there. So being "OPEN" is "IN"! Open Source and Crowd Sourcing are the new buzzwords of the new era. The case in point is the spawning of Application stores after Apple has successfully used it as SaaS differentiator versus other players in the smartphone space. The other case in point is the coming of age of crowd sourced platforms such as Digg and Twitter. Even while Convergence of Internet and mobile services is a event in process, the technology frontier has now moved to Cloud computing (instead of desktop computing and legacy systems.)

The cloud eco-system, is effectively using the following as service based business models.

IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service

PaaS: Platform as a Service

Saas: Software as a Service.

Refer to the slide below for a snap shot of the service models that are being hosted by the cloud.

I shall not be probing into the depths of each of these cloud hosted services. Instead, we will try to draw the Telecom industry equivalent of Cloud Services --> Lets call this Telco 2.0 eco system (and services).

In as far as IaaS is concerned, Telco's are sharing the infrastructure and keeping the costs under control.  This gives them the ability to focus their efforts in building greater foot prints, bigger advertising budgets and larger promotions (which on the other hand is commoditizing the core product.) Also IaaS means the SME network and voice solutions being provided. The central idea in here is that money made through the IaaS route is not being used for any significant innovation efforts.

As far as SaaS and PaaS is concerned, Telco's have little and no control on this aspect of the eco system. The control rests either with the internet/web 2.0 pioneers -->Google, Yahoo, FaceBook, Twitter etc or lies with the OS system holder --> Nokia, Apple, Google, Palm, Microsoft, RIM etc. The operator makes money through the usage and just that. It exercises no control over Content, Consumer or the Device. (For Telco Carriers (At&T, Sprint , Verizon etc) there is a point here, since they have the choice of devices on their network. Hence there is some amount of co-creation.) However there are ominous signs that the iPhone style model is winning, i.e. Telco's are being used as a transaction point in the retail channel but all the real value is ending up outside the Telco eco-system. A recent release by AT&T and Canadian Rogers have indicated increase of data usage on their networks through the introduction of iPhone and a subsequent increase in data ARPU. However, the iPhone cost subsidy doesnot allow higher usage of data translate into direct profits for these carriers.

Tabulated below is AT&T and Rogers numbers for the year 2008.

With voice moving towards zero tarriffs (VoiP: Skype and Google Voice anyone?) and mobile broadband commoditizing fast, the margins of the operators who have been the lords of the Telecom eco-system is under huge pressure. Thus the operator is at a threat of being used simply to transfer bytes to and from the customer’s device and not being able to increase their position or add any additional services beyond simple network operations. Thats the dumb pipe. (The term basically stems from the internet where ISPs managed to botch their position and now provide nothing but connection and bandwidth.). Operators can increase charges and higher percentages in the revenue generated by the content providers for using the operator pipeline. However, this is unsustainable because it results in high prices for end users, and consumers being deterred from accessing mobile content on a wider scale.

Endnote: With services getting polarized towards content providers and OS makers and device manufacturers, the Operators will need to differentiate thier offerings and must innovate on their services to maintain their relevance in the Telecom eco-system.

A report by Juniper Research, examines the three main scenarios facing the operators and the sector as a whole – the 'dumb pipe', 'smart pipe' and 'on-portal' routes. One single scenario will not win out, since different business and revenue models have to co-exist in the mobile content market.Players will adopt multiple approaches that best fit their markets. Crucially, if MNOs are to benefit financially, they need to move away from their dumb pipe roots to the smart pipe model, though they will clash with the content providers which already dominate the smart pipe.

The report predicts that under the smart pipe model, MNOs will not see their share of the overall mobile content market rise appreciably, but revenue will rise in value by 125 per cent over the 2008 to 2013 period.Meanwhile under the on-portal scenario, content providers will see their share of the market rise from 54 per cent in 2008 to 68 per cent by 2013, providing they can secure more attractive terms from MNOs.The report also concludes that various players can find a compromise and concludes that if MNOs can change their focus from the traditional average revenue-per-user mindset, to instead concentrating on value creation and support for their partners, they can swiftly make the change to a more beneficial scenario for everyone. In effect, it advocates moving away from the existing mindset to a more collaborative view of the eco-system. 

References:

http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13234973&source=hptextfeature

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2231346/mobile-operators-danger

http://social.telematicsupdate.com/content/have-mobile-operators-become-‘dumb-pipes’

mobile analyst firm Juniper Research's recent Mobile Content Strategies & Business Models: Scenarios & Forecasts 2008-2013 report