LATAM Telecom

About a month ago, GSM Association issued a press release announcing Personal Instant Messaging Services Go Live in Asia with the commercial launch of IM in India (Aircel, Bharti Airtel, BPL Mobile, BSNL, Idea, MTNL, Reliance Telecom, Spice and Vodafone-Essar) and Malaysia (DiGi Telecommunications and Maxis), which allows customers of those networks to send each other instant messages using their mobile phones. According to GSMA, more than 40 mobile operators worldwide are developing Personal IM services. This initiative has taken root in Latin America with Telefonica Movistar leading the way with their SMS 2.0 initiative. SMS 2.0 is Telefonica's commercial name for the same service, which GSMA calls Personal Instant Messaging. GSMA has been working hard for the last two years to support the development of the technical and commercial framework for this service. In Latin America, Telefonica Movistar is already looking into deploying this service in different operations. Brazil ope

This holiday season operators in Chile launched intense campaigns to promote their 3G services (see Claro and Entel PCS TV commercials). Services promoted are Video Telephony and Digital TV and Radio, with the promise of "other services coming soon". This comes as no surprise as Chile is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the region. According to the second annual Latin Technology Index from Latin Business Chronicle , Chile tops the list with the highest Internet and broadband penetration, the second-highest wireless telephony penetration and the third-highest PC penetration in Latin America. Latin America operators have quickly moved to putting in place all the infrastructure necessary for 3G, with operators in Chile, Argentina, Brazil leading the way. It is not a bad thing that operators are updating their networks, the question remains, however, What does 3G bring to Latin American markets? These services not only require new handsets, which can make t

Voicemail has been a common service for both wireless and fixed network operators in Latin America for more than 10 years but it has remained essentially unchanged since its introduction. Calls on busy/unavailable/unreachable are transferred to Voicemail , where callers can leave a message. The called party receives a notification, usually by SMS and then dials in, enters a password and listens to recorded messages. Even though vendors like Comverse and Glenayre have had multimedia voicemail solutions for a while now, it was not until AT&T launched the iPhone that services like Visual Voicemail started gaining traction in the end user's perception. This is prompting operators to look into bringing their Voicemail into the 21st century. Even though it is a service that in many countries in Latin America has almost 100% penetration, operators have been slow in updating their Voicemail application. The iPhone's Visual Voicemail interface, however, is changing subscribers

Given MSN's slow approach to developing the MIM market in Latin America, it will be interesting tosee if Telefonica's strategy of repackaging Personal IM as SMS 2.0 -like they are doing in Spain- will work in Latin America. It is no secret that operators in Latin America have triedfor several years to sign an agreement with MSN for Mobile Instant Messaging with no success. Until 2006, only Movistar Chile and Argentina were able to sign such an agreement and that was for a WAP based solution. GSMA is developing an open solution, with interconnection between operators . In Europe operators have already deployed such a solution, this seems like an appropriate strategy for the Latin American market. GSMA has also stated that it eventually wants to have interconnectivity with portals. This makes us wonder how long can MSN stand the pressure? With two huge groups, Telefonica and America Movil, dominating the landscape in one of the fastest growing mobile markets, it shouldn't b

The iPhone has shaken the industry in a way that only an outsider could do. Apple broke all the rules and moved swiftly into the handset business with the most successful device ever -or at least the most talked about; according to Google, the iPhone Was The Most-Searched Item In 2007. But it's not only the technology and the user interface that are extremely innovative in the iPhone. The terms of the agreement, in which Apple is getting revenue from iPhone sales, as well as a portion of the monthly fees from AT&T's iPhone data plans is a first in the industry. The iPhone has already landed in North America and Europe, and Asia is the next market on Steve Jobs' agenda. Apple has been reported to be in talks with China Mobile, the biggest operator on the market ( source ), and two Japanese companies: Softbank Corp (currently number 3 on the market) and NTT DoCoMo ( source from a Wall Street Journal report ). Recent reports indicate that Apple's revenue scheme has l

A little more than a year ago, Telefonica Moviles Spain and Colibria announced the launch of SMS 2.0 (source Colibira Press release , Nov 2006). Earlier this year, both parties announced interconnectivity with Vodafone’s Messenger (source Colibria Press release , Feb 2007). Telefonica has been working hard this year to bring the same service to Latin America. This should be an interesting move, given the difficulties IM/Presence vendors like Colibria and Oz have had introducing a Portal IM gateway service in Latin America. SMS 2.0 is much more than an upgrade to an SMS platform/service, it is actually a repackaging of what we know as Operator IM. The new 'feature' of this service allows seamless communication with subscribers that do not have the service (SMS 2.0 is a presence application), and they can exchange SMS messages that will be received by the other subscribers through the SMS 2.0 application. While SMS 2.0 can be expected initially to have a limited scope (it require

Following my post from yesterday regarding the opportunity that Mobile Instant Messaging represents in Latin America, I found out that two major players, OZ and Neustar recently issued interesting press releases: NeuStar has announced that it has reached a milestone in the development of mobile instant messaging (IM) globally, having delivered 3 billion mobile IM messages across its servers ( source ). OZ announced that its mobile IM and mobile Email gateways have handled over 10 billion transactions to date. Adding to this milestone, OZ also announced that it has shipped its 100 millionth preloaded client on mobile phones ( source ). Both companies quoted additional statistics showing the success of both Mobile Instant Messaging and Mobile Email in the North American and European markets. According to Allen Scott, general manager of NeuStar, "This is an important moment for mobile IM because it marks a significant step toward this service becoming a mainstream mobile application

Despite operator's interest and efforts in the last three years or so, Latin America has yet to catch up to their counterparts in the USA, Australia and Europe with a gateway/client MIM solution. The issue seems to be that so far, operators have shown interest in a portal messenger, in a region where MSN has more than 80% market share (90% according to some). Movistar and America Movil have both had talks with MSN but so far only Movistar Chile and Argentina have a formal agreement (see Movistar and Microsoft have created in Chile the first instant message community for mobile telephones ) for a WAP based solution. MSN is said to be looking at major markets (Mexico, Brazil) and going on a case by case basis, which means that any negotiation with America Movil and Telefonica Movistar will be done per country/operator. Talks between Latin American operators and MSN, however, have been going on for several years now and operators have become increasingly frustrated. Other portals (AOL

Movistar Argentina has launched " Quieren Hablarte" (December 11, 2007), a new service that allows prepaid customers to send an SMS notification to other Movistar subscribers when their credit runs out (source: Movistar Press release , also AHCIET ). Movsitar also has the "Avisame" service, which notifies them of the availability of the called party up to 3 hours after a failed call atempt. These services point to the relevance of a need for a call completion strategy in the region that focuses on different call scenarios as well as both calling party and called party. It'll be interesting to see how the service is received by subscribers. As we understand it, this service is automatic for all Movistar subscribers (Movistar to Movistar calls) with opt out option and a limit of 10 notifications once the subscriber's credit runs out. Telecom Personal also has mellamas which is basically the same service (to another Telecom personal number or a fixed number).

Fatima Raimondi, CEO of the Southern Unit for Ericsson Latin America stated that "A year ago, when I talked about 3G in the region, many thought of it as a fantasy; but now we can see it has been throughly realized" (interview for Convergencialatina , 2007 Latin American Yearbook MOBILES). The Southern Cone leads the region in technology and launch of 3G networks: Chile was the first to launch with the 3G launch of Entel PCS in December 2006. Since then, several America Movil and Telefonica Movistar properties followed aggressively during 2007, as well as Telecom Personal in Argentina. This is all good news, as the building of infrastructure was done in a relatively short period of time. However, as we have mentioned in previous posts (see posts 1 , 2 and 3 ), we have yet to see what this means for the evolution of VAS services in the region. Operators in the region have launched a number of services in the last couple of years but we have yet to see how MMS, Ring Back

According to Cellular News , Apple also has reached exclusive deals with T-Mobile in Germany and France Telecom , and is expected to reach exclusive deals with operators in Russia and China. The article points out how Apple's strategy may limit their potential in the long term, since cellphone industry giants are fighting back with cellphones of their own to counter the iPhone. Apple's strategy is to work through exclusive deals such as AT&T in the USA. What about Latin America? We have heard rumors since the hype of the iPhone launch started earlier this year, that both America Movil and Telefonica were in talks with Apple. So far it seems that Apple is only willing to do a negotiation per country, which leaves the door open to different scenarios. According to Telecompaper , Claro is in talks for iPhone contract. Telcel Mexico officially addressed the issue in June this year through their spokesperson, Patricia Ramirez ( source ) where she stated the operator's inter

Brough's COMMUNICATIONS Blog from 12/08/2007 talks about Ringback Tones Adoption Rates , a service that has been very successful in Asia as a money maker and music distribution channel: Nearly 55% of Korean subscribers have ringback tone service; China Mobile has close to 50% adoption. In contrast, adoption rates in Europe were below 10%; the US has ~12M subscribers or 5%. What about Latin America? Based on our experience with operators in the region, the best cases have about 2% service penetration. Brough pays special attention to the fact that operators in Korea and China have more than 20 content providers just for this service. In contrast, the typical operator in the US or EU is usually the only source of information or content. In Latin America, with the exception of some early adopters like Movistar Chile , most operators launched the service during 2006. For the most part, penetration has been low and the uptake slow, even the most successful cases like Millicom Colombia

From Cellular News and other news sources, we find out that Microsoft has started placing advertisements on the U.S. version of MSN Mobile. Microsoft already serves up mobile ads in Japan and some European markets. Competitor Yahoo began selling cell phone ads phones in the U.S. in late 2006 and expanded overseas in February (source: Cellular News ). What about Latin America? Microsoft introduced MSN Mobile in the Latin American market in 2006, with Brazil leading the way ( source ), as well as Movistar Chile and Argentina, with the launch of MSN Mobile ( source ). While this service is available in most of the region, it is a WAP based service that can be cumbersome. There are no available statistics that we know of for the penetration of this service, but we expect them to be very low. The deployment of 3G networks in the region can probably help operators provide a better user experience for this service, although given the limitations presented by a mostly prepaid customer base (~

"2007 was the year 3G services started to become widely available throughout the Americas," remarked 3G Americas President, Chris Pearson. "There is widespread deployment of HSDPA in the US and Canada, and UMTS/HSPA networks are now launched in many markets in Latin America and the Caribbean." Operators in Argentina (Personal, Movistar, CTI Movil), Chile (Entel PCS), Uruguay (Ancel, CTI Movil and Movistar), Paraguay (CTI Movil) and recently, Brazil (Telemig Celular and Claro) announced the launch of their UMTS services this year. A year ago, AT&T Mobility in Puerto Rico became the first operator to launch commercial UMTS services in the Caribbean. Eva Benguigui, Senior Research Analyst Latin America with Informa Telecoms and Media, predicts, "Based on the eleven UMTS/HSPA network launches in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the many more to come in 2008, the number of UMTS/HSPA subscriptions in the region will reach 15.3 million by year end 2009."

Latin America's largest groups, Telefonica Movistar and America Movil, have indicated their intentions to put in place the infrastructure necessary to deploy 3G services (see here and here ). This will allow faster access to content and faster downloads, improving access to advanced services. The other pieces of the puzzle should follow, mainly the penetration of capable handsets, “smart phones” with some form of data capability. The question that remains is, are users in Latin America ready for these services? How will operators add new users and make sure they will adopt the new services?

Mexico's America Movil announced recently the commercial launch of advanced third-generation services in several markets early next year ( America Movil Sees 3g Launch 1q 08 ). The group's Argentine subsidiary, mobile operator CTI Movil, launched 3G services in greater Buenos Aires, Rosario and Cordoba, following similar launches earlier this year by rivals Telecom Personal and Movistar ( CTI Movil Launches 3G in Coastal Cities ). CTI’s sister operations in Uruguay and Paraguay will also launch 3G in the near future, in the cities of Colonia and Punta del Este (Uruguay) and Ciudad del Este and Encarnacion (Paraguay).