Can operators generate more revenue from Voice?

With mobile penetration around the world reaching saturation, and the growth rate for traditional services flattening, operators are looking for new options to increase revenue. However, traditional services (voice, SMS) continue to be the main revenue generators for operators and there are still many interesting options to continue milking the cash cow.
Services such as Ring Back Tones, MMS and Push e mail, when they were first introduced, created huge expectations that have not been delivered. In addition, operators get distracted by these new services and tend to overlook the basics.
Voice mail, for example, is still the main call completion service and SMS continues to be the main messaging service worldwide; it is expected this trend will continue for the next few years.
Operators can benefit from looking at options that sit on top of both services, to revitalize them and target missed opportunities.
One of the key advantages to leveraging voice and SMS is that they can be used to target the mass market, regardless of the type of device. This is one of the main challenges VAS vendors need to address when presenting new services to mobile operators, even in the more advanced markets.
Some interesting examples of VAS services that operators can consider include Voice to Text, Voice SMS and the different versions of visual voice mail that include MMS and SMS delivery.
These services might seem quite similar, but by addressing specific market needs they provide different opportunities for mobile operators to increase revenue from traditional services.
Kirusa's Voice SMS, for example, has been launched in developing markets including India (Vodafone), Uganda and Haiti (Comcel). This service allows calling parties to send a voice mail that is delivered with a text notification. This service is very similar to Comverse's Multimedia Call Completion (MCC), which also delivers a voice message either by SMS or MMS; the main difference is in the call flow and user interface. Both services, however, address a key element, which is to provide a service to the calling party; traditional call completion services such as voice mail and missed call alert focus on the called party.
Comverse's Multimedia Call Completion is positioned somewhat differently; it has been deployed in more advanced markets such as Czech Republic (T-Mobile) and China (Yunnan). Yet another variation is MMS/SMS voice mail delivery, which is positioned as a mass market option for Visual Voice Mail and has been deployed in the more advanced markets, including Argentina (Claro) and Sweden.
Call completion around the world is still around 70% for mobile operators. In the past, coverage/reachability was the main contributing factor to low call completion. However, with better coverage in most parts of the world and with user habits changing (most people now tend to leave their cell phones on 24/7), it is clear that there are other challenges that need to be addressed.
That remaining 30% represents a huge opportunity that mobile operators should consider.

Comments

  1. Anonymous11:48 AM

    Thanks, Raul. Interesting enough. But what do you think, as practitioner, about using of retail market not for direct revenue only, but, in addition, as wide market channel for selling of B2B telco-solutions?

    Thank you in advance for explaining.

    SY,
    /oleh

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here in the US a perfect storm if you will is creating a new, unique to the US market application with the cellular environment. The push towards FMC, the desire to control/reduce telecom costs coupled with the desire for new line activations and reducing churn rates has resulted in ever increasing demands for cellular gateways in the SME business marketplace. T-Mobile for example has gotten very aggressive in this market segment. They can offer a client an enhancement to their current ERP/DRP contingencies, a significant reduction in paid pooled minutes (PBX calls routed through the gateway are viewed as Mobile to Mobile activity) while developing an untapped source of new line activations. The carrier also experiences a reduction in churn rate because they are one level deeper into the client telecom network.

    Since there are no activatable CDMA versions of the cellular gateway currently available in the US Market, the advantage, for the time being belongs to T-Mobile and at&t. Of those two, it's all T-Mobile.

    ReplyDelete

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