Wifi Revolution

 

There is no question that image-based services hold promise. But they won’t be able to deliver on that promise until usage grows exponentially and subscribers adopt picture/video-based messages as a routine part of their communications.

 

Unfortunately, we’ve seen that even heavily promoting video messaging in its infancy did not grow revenue as quickly or as much as operators had hoped. Even if promoting new technologies eventually doubles adoption, the impact of increasing such a small portion of overall messaging revenues will be marginal.

 

Instead of waiting for new messaging technologies to achieve sustainable, bankable revenue growth, operators should act now to increase their revenue sources using the technology they have in place.

 

With more than a trillion text messages sent annually, SMS infrastructures generate profits. The infrastructure and technology is proven and familiar to operators, and the integration of experienced vendors enables low-risk development. That experience and success coupled with global adoption--more than 2 billion handsets worldwide support SMS--provides a solid, stable foundation for revenue growth.

 

To unlock that growth potential, however, operators have to look at their SMS infrastructures more creatively. In addition to deploying new revenue generating services on their proven SMS infrastructure, operators are now also evolving their infrastructure towards tiered architectures that dramatically reduce operating expenses. 

 

 

The basic short message service remains virtually unchanged from the moment the first text message was delivered in 1992. There are numerous applications that use SMS to deliver valuable content such as ring-tones, news and m-tickets to end users. However, operators and vendors have done very little to extend the service itself. It remains a simple delivery service. But it’s a simple delivery service with straightforward end-to-end delivery at a low cost, which is why it has been so successful.

 

Enhancing the service offering, while providing subscribers with more options, can certainly enable operators to increase revenue. However, enhancements can threaten the simplicity of SMS that supported its growth; not all subscribers will want the same enhancements. So operators should enable subscribers to choose which enhancements are right for them.

 

Applications that enable each subscriber to personalize their messaging service enable operators to retain and attract subscribers, as well as increase average revenue per user (ARPU). Personalization services allow mobile operators to differentiate their network by giving customers more control over the services they subscribe to. Because the subscriber has taken time to make their service suit their needs, personalization is a “sticky” service--making it difficult for subscribers to churn to another operator.

 

Personalization can also be a powerful business communication tool that introduces e-mail-like features such as auto-reply and group lists to mobile messaging. Some key personalization features that can help users better manage their messaging applications include:

Image-based services will have a significant impact on operators’ bottom lines. Until then, operators must make their existing text-based infrastructures work more profitably for them. Providing customers with the type of “sticky” services that personalization offers both encourages loyalty and differentiates the operator in a crowded market. These factors in turn will grow revenue until operators roll out multimedia-based services.

 

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