A new MVNO was launched in the US yesterday: Red Pocket Mobile. It targets 4 million well-educated and wealthy Chinese-Americans in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The service is based on Motorola Razr phones with menus and content in Chinese. International calls to Taiwan, China and Singapore will be charged the same as domestic calls and subscribers can choose their own local Chinese numbers.
Another ethnic MVNO will be launched by E-Plus in Germany in mid October: it is called “Ay Yildiz” (moon star, the name of the Turkish national flag) and is targeting the 2.6 million Turks living in Germany.
If MVNOs like these are successful, a natural next step will be to broaden the range of services aimed at the same communities with TV, radio, web, content, etc. Is the ethnic approach a way to build profitable quad play services?
-Erik
I recently posted a comment on the potential disruption of cellular services by dual-mode WiFi/cellular handsets. Now ABI Research says that femtocell Access Points (APs) may in turn disrupt dual-mode WiFi/cellular…
Femtocell APs (or 3G APs) are small cellular base stations which connect to a broadband connection at home or in an office. According to ABI, femtocell APs offer greater network efficiency, better wireless coverage and are simpler and cheaper than WiFi for fixed mobile convergence services. "Some operators now believe that they don't need to subsidize more expensive Wi-Fi-enabled handsets; they can use the handsets they have, and put femtocells in the home," ABI's Philip Solis says.
European service providers are still betting on the dual-mode approach: this week, France Telecom / Orange announced its dual-mode Unik handset, which will be launched October 5th in France, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland.
We’ll see which technology will win. In any case, I expect the most successful service providers to offer quad play bundles targeted at different consumer needs.
-Erik
This week I attended IDC’s European IT Forum and listened to Chris Anderson speak about his Long Tail concept. He used examples such as Amazon and Rhapsody to explain how online retailers can profitably sell niche products to a “long tail” of previously underserved, micro-segmented markets. I have wondered how the same concept could be applied to triple play and quad play: after all, recently launched MVNOs focus on specific consumer markets such as families with young kids (Disney mobile) or young American males (Amp’d mobile). Disney has a multi-play approach by leveraging their brand across content, TV, radio, them parks, etc.
I had a chat about this with Chris, and he confirmed that MVNOs are the “beginning of a Long Tail” in telecoms, but they are not as micro-segmented as online businesses. According to him, a couple of catalysts are still missing to enable the real Long Tail on mobile phones: 1) cheap broadband and 2) better GUIs. In other words, the mobile phone experience has to get closer to Web surfing. When that happens, quad play services are sure to get a boost!
-Erik
For the past several years, France has become one of the world’s most dynamic VoIP and triple play markets. There is a large choice of several service providers (Free, Neuf, Orange, Club-Internet) and triple play packages start at cut-throat prices: 29.99 Euros per month. Now triple play providers are adding mobility with dual-mode WiFi/cellular handsets.
Neuf is the first to market with its Twin phone, which connects to your home WiFi network or to a GSM network while outside. More interestingly, it also connects to any Neuf community WiFi hotspot outside your home: Neuf claims 50,000 access points worldwide! This “user-built” WiFi network is made up of other Neuf user WiFi boxes, French railway hotspots, the ADAEL network and the FON community. This means unlimited calling to fixed lines in all of the European Union, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia and New Zeeland. For the US and Canada, calls to both fixed and wireless numbers are included.
Neuf has found a nifty solution to the power challenge on dual-mode phones with a manually activated “WiFi button”. With this feature, Neuf claims 250 hours standby time in GSM mode, 50 hours in WiFi and 4 hours of talk time.
This is the beginning of a trend which could be very disruptive to cellular operators. If I live and work in a large city covered with my community’s WiFi hotspots, how much will I spend on cellular services in the future?
-Erik
Erik Larsson, Vice President Marketing, Netcentrex Converged IP Communications, Comverse
Erik Larsson is responsible for driving the overall marketing activities for converged IP communications within the Comverse group. Before the acquisition by Comverse, he played a significant role in reinforcing Netcentrex’ image and position in the marketplace and developed the company’s reputation as a leader in VoIP applications using his extensive knowledge and experience of the telecoms environment.
Prior to Netcentrex, Erik held senior marketing positions at Nortel and Genuity / Level 3, and has a track record of managing successful marketing initiatives both for early-stage and established high-tech companies. He has published a number of articles in specialized media and is a frequent speaker at industry events.
Erik Larsson has a MS in Engineering Physics from KTH (Sweden) and an MBA from the Kelley School of business (USA).
Randal E. Waters
Randy is Vice President CIPC Market Development for Comverse and brings 24 years of engineering and leadership experience in the telecom switching industry. Prior to joining Comverse, Randy founded a venture capital financed telecom company, Carrius Technologies, and served as its President, CEO, COO, and finally CTO. Carrius developed and delivered a programmable softswitch to the marketplace. Randy served as Chief of Applications Technology at Taqua Systems responsible for architecting and developing its next generation Class 5 softswitch. Previously at Alcatel, Randy directed the architecture and development of the Call Server Softswitch and the next-generation Signaling Server STP, and also directed the development of the International Megahub STP product. Prior to Alcatel, Randy directed the development of the Nexus SCP, Telestar Tandem Switch, and the DaVinci Service Node at IEX Corporation (acquired by Tekelec). While at Bell Laboratories, Randy managed the development and deployment of a nationwide packet data service, as well as developed and tested software and hardware on the 5ESS Class 5/4 switch. Randy has masters and bachelors of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.