Once Bitten Twice Shy....

The Year : 2006. The High profile US Market sees the entry of two top notch brands into the Wireless Space. These Brands neither have any experience of managing any part of Telecom Network, Billing or Customer Issues. All they had was Content... Probably two of the biggest Content Owners in the World market today. The Two Brands i'm talking about are ESPN & Disney. Both entered the market through the MVNO route]

The Year : 2007. ESPN & Disney shut their Wireless operations citing low volumes and less than expected take up for their much hyped content.

January 2008. Disney Mobile has entered the world's most competitive 3G market, Japan and it plans to launch commercial services from February. It has already introduced handsets (custome made for Disney by Sharp) for its service and is the first MVNO of Japan. It has a network sharing deal deal with Softbank corp.

Will Disney Mobile be successful after a bitter end to its US operations ?? Well to answer that Question, lets take a look at their strategy.

• In the US, it primarily targeted teens and children who have a longing for its content. Its LBS service (a first !!!) was touted as being very useful especially for parents to locate their children. Its Marketing strategy was to lure children and teens so that they force their parents to buy a mobile for them.
• Its Strategy in the Japanese market is different. Here its Target Market Segment is females below 20 years of age. It is said that there is a huge take up of Disney's content among the pupil in this segment (wasnt the same true with children & teen segment in the USA ??). Disney bases this argument primarily on the huge popularity of Disneyland in Japan.

Well, First things first, I Dont see much of a change in Disney's strategy. In both US & Japan eventhough the segments are different it is targeting the segment where the probability of Disney's content take-up is high. What disney is failing to understand is the reasons for its failure in US were different. It cited poor network sharing agreement with Sprint in US as the reason for its failure there but i believe the primary reason for its failure was positioning content before the core offerings of a mobile service. Users want content today as complimentary to their mobile service. Disney Mobile i believe got it wrong by concentrating more than required on its content.

But this doesnot mean that Disney Mobile will not be succesful in Japan. I Believe there are other market factors which will define its success there. Firstly, none of the existing players in the Japanese market have a youthful brand image. Vodafone tried to exploit this opportunity but failed few years ago and eventually ended up selling its unit to softbank, which is primarily targeting the price sensitive users. But there is no denying the fact that Japan can take one such brand in its Telecom market. Secondly, the operators mainstay in Japan is the mobile data market and rightly so (because of higher revenues involved) they are targeting corporates. So a operator which focuses on youth alone will be a welcome change. what Disney must not forget is the fact that it is niche operator in this market. But if Disney follows its content centric strategy in Japan(similar to its strategy in the USA), we may soon see another operator logging off the Japanese Market soon. Also Disney being the first MVNO, it can also leverage its first mover advantage for better content sharing deals and operator revenue share agreements.

Time out !!!

Well all the money in this world cannot buy you this....
Mom's Love...., Dad's Care........, Home Food......, Chatting around with old friends......, catching up on hot topics around in the street you grew up in etc etc etc...

Yes... All this means i'm in Hyderabad, The City of Pearls - the City of Minarets. No Matter how big you become and how powerful to transform yourself into, you cannot forget who you are and where you come from !!! Thats what I get reminded of whenever i comeback to the place of my berth. Its a long holiday for me... (2 Weeks) and i hope to catchup on atleast half the things i missed out on since the past 6 months, the time since my last meaningful visit..

Anyways, lets not forget the efforts of freedom fighters. I wish all the citizens of India a very happy Republic Day !!! The Country is in our young hands now and it is upon to show the world that we have what it taks to take it upto that next level.

700 Mhz Spectrum Valuations

We are on the verge of witnessing history in Telecom Sector. Many Years later, we would be able to tell our future generations, that "I Was There when it all happened".

With just a couple of days left for the auction to start, there has been a lot of hype about how the non traditional players will value the spectrum.. What will be the foundations on which they will build a business case ?? Google has come out openly and said it is going to bid at cut-off and wont go agressive (remember building a network is very capital intensive, it may rather focus on applications than managing a network). In such a scenario, it is easy to assume that as always the traditional telecom operators will sideline a huge chunk of spectrum at lower valuations. But is not as easy as it sounds. Here's why

• A Huge chunk of available spectrum is sidelined for Public safety communications. Not quite sure how prfitable would the Sprint's and Verizon's of world think of it.
• AT&T is not expected to be very agressive thanks to the acquisition of ALOHA Partners (where it got about 10Mhz of spectrum in this band)
• The Cable Companies are still not sure of the kind of revenues they may realize by providing wireless with their triple play bundle. They may just sit back, bid at lower levels and gauge the seriousness of other Cable companies before they actually get agressive in the auction.
• The Talk of a Economic Slowdown & Subprime Crisis couldnot have come at a worse time for FCC. The Banks are more averse than ever to lend to companies and companies are sceptical because of a general dampening of public sentiment.

The Non Traditional Telecom operators have been a huge influence behind FCC changing the auction regulations and including open access and public safety provisions. But the the Question is will these companies actually bid agressively and will they help realize what FCC hopes is the realistic valuation of 100 Mhz of spectrum in 700 Mhz band (close to US$ 20 Billion) . Although only time can answer this question, my Answer would be a big "NO". FCC intentions were clean and clear but somehow the business case behind the auction doesnt seem sound. As they say, lack of clarity work for the advantage of some but disadvantage of mane. I Guess this is a just a scenario where Operators will be at an advantage(paying less and walking away with more) and the FCC & US Coffers in general will be at a disadvantage.

Time for Voice 2.0

After Web 2.0 & Telco 2.0, its now time for Voice 2.0.... Wholesale voice has been something like a Cash Cow for operators across the world for the past few years with few innovations to drive this segment of revenues.

It is still the mainstay of most of the operators but the revenues are continuously dwindling. In such a scenario, the work which lead some to coin the term Voice 2.0 is commendable.

So What exactly is voice 2.0 ?? No it isnt all about VoIP as some would expect, it is more centered around the kind of applications one can run around voice..

2 Applications that are really expected to catch up under Voice 2.0 are

• Voice based VAS Content access: Here the user voice response (not the key pad entry) will be processed by the Application server for the access of content.
• Again another VAS application wherein you call a user without actually knowling his/her number. A Virtual Dating service is one good example wherein people interested will list their details and people seeking will just go onto the portal and just click on the interested user.

Here's Hoping that Voice, the "old war horse" which has been the bread & butter of the industry for so long continues to innovate to keep itself relavnt with both customers and the service providers.

Me ?? User Generated Content ??

Well, I'm here finally. Not withstanding all those hype about User Generated Content(UGC), i finally had to enter the world of Blogging. I still have my reservations about UGC driving the telecom networks of the future. This stuff can definitely add to the operators revenues for sure but would they be the mainstay for the operators ?? I Dont think so..

Anyways, the undeniable fact is Santosh is finally on the blogworld. But the more important Question is "Would he be hooked onto it ? " Only Time will answer that Question..