Communications

Consumer Value, Brands and the Walled Garden

The future of telecom is in brands, i.e. in mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) who have the brand, not the network.

As I investigate future applications and future directions for our Mobile Place platform, I end up talking with strategists at the major mobile operators. They're in a tough position and they know it.  They want to preserve their walled gardens and the associated revenues as long as possible, and yet they can't ignore their users' desires to connect to other communities -- AOL, MSN or Yahoo instant messengers, for example.

Communities are critical, but they form around user interests and/or brands, e.g. Disney Mobile. And as communications costs continue to drop, it will be easier and easier to fund communications via brands seeking a moment of your attention, e.g. the way Internet search is funded.  Again brands are more important than networks.

Indeed, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL are more important brands than any mobile operator, even Vodafone. Recently, Phil Wolff referred me to some really great data on brands, globally and by region.

In this survey, Vodafone (at # 40) is the highest ranking mobile operator.  There are only two mobile operators in the top 70 global brands (NTT DoCoMo is #69).  Not only are Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Microsoft ahead of Vodafone, but so are handset vendors Nokia (#7) and Motorola (#30).

There's still an enormous amount of technology and government licenses required to make a mobile network, so the mobile operators are not going away.  But as this speculative article about Vodafone Japan suggests,

Vodafone President Bill Morrow has already said the company is talking to as many as 30 potential MVNOs. Japanese and international entertainment companies, local retailers and established MVNOs...

the biggest long term opportunity may be to facilitate many, many MVNOs on their networks, catering to many, many communities.

 

Lawsuit takes down German Widipeida site

James Enck (EuroTelcoBlog) points out the German Wikipedia site is currently down. Here's the site in German and here's Google Language Tool's English translation.

Delving a little deeper, it appears the family of Boris Floricic (a German hacker well known under the pseudonym Tron who died in 1998) has sued the German Wikipedia foundation to protect his privacy and has obtained a court order in Germany that's caused the German site to stop displaying any of the German version of Wikipedia.

Of course, this is doesn't work in the Internet age.  The Internet is global, while laws are largely national.

So while Wikipedia in German is down, the German text is still available.  For those of you who follow hacking, the English details of Tron's career are available here.  More importantly, the entire German version of Wikipedia is still available through Wikipedia.org here. While I can sympathize with Boris Floricic's family's pain at his death, Tron was a very public figure so it's hard to see how anyone could  expect to keep the details of his life secret.

In more controlled societies it possible for the government to filter all Internet connections as China does. And every society regulates their citizens' behavior in various regards, witness US attempts to restrict Internet gambling.  But the music industry hasn't stopped file sharing and it's unlikely the Chinese have suppressed all discussion of banned issues.

Think of the Internet as comparable to the printing press in its impact on 15th and 16th century Europe.  That revolution stretched over several hundred years. Communications is much faster today, but laws change slowly and culture is a generational thing. When will law and regulation catch up with the Internet age?

 

Lifetime prepaid to boost mobile adoption

Airtel has introduced a lifetime prepaid cellular service in India and four other operators immediately responded with similar services.  This is significant, but first what is it?

With most prepaid accounts if you don't recharge the account for some period (6 months, 3 months or as little as 30 days) the account expires.  You can no longer receive calls and you lose the phone number.

With lifetime prepaid, you can let your credit run to zero but still receive calls, indefinitely!  In developing countries with low mobile phone penetration, this is very significant. 

As Veer Chand Bothra says

Companies can now actually give it to all their field staff who need to be reachable but don’t often need to make a call - drivers, courier boys, collection agents etc.

Also in India, as in most developing economies, middle class families can afford servants -- a cook, gardener, driver, etc.  In my discussions with friends in Pakistan, it's clear that even with prepaid accounts that expire, it's worth giving mobile phones to your servants so you can reach them whenever you need to.  I've also heard stories in several developing countries of people obtaining mobile phones for elderly parents in remote villages.  Whatever the reason, these new prepaid accounts in India will significantly boost mobile adoption and drive additional minutes, even if the lifetime prepaid customers only receive calls.

Mobile phone adoption depends on network effects.  A phone is only valuable when there are people you want to call and it becomes more valuable when there are more people you want to call.  Lifetime prepaid provides a low cost way to significantly expand the pool of people you can call at a very modest expense. And, it encourages those with money to pay for phones for those who otherwise would have put off the expense. Mobile operators in other developing countries should follow this example.

Footnotes...

• What does it really cost to equip someone with a lifetime mobile?  Used handsets are available for less than $20 and the lifetime prepaid card is Rs 999 (roughly $22).
• Is there any fine print?  Yes, but not too onerous.  If there is no activity whatsoever (no incoming calls or incoming messages) for six months then the account is dropped.