Challenges for Nigerian Mobile VAS in 3G era

The granting of the 3g license to four companies without auction finally settles the hotly debated issue of 3g licensing. Winners are expected to pay the license fee, being the reserve bid less the intention to–bid deposit of $15 million within fourteen days. This translates to a total amount of $135 million which is $130 million less the amount paid for license in year 2001. Apart from Alheri Engineering, other winners of the license are already operating GSM Networks in the last few years and the acquisition of the license will help to consolidation.

Over the last few years, voice has always been the major revenue base for National Mobile Operators In Nigeria. However, with the rapid development of mobile communication and the licensing of 3g Spectrum, this will greatly increase ability to perform lots of other services that will drastically change the business pattern of the telecom industry and bringing a set of new challenges.

Mobile value added services are those services that are not part of the basic voice offer and are availed off separately by the end user. They are used as a tool for differentiations and allow the mobile operators to develop another stream of revenue. As time goes on, a value added service may become commoditized. Nigerian VAS market is grouped along the following categories informational, entertainment and Mobile commerce.

For the Nigeria Vas Market to grow rapidly to meet expected demands of the 3G technology, all stakeholders will have to work together to create a self sustaining ecosystems for this growth to sustain. It would take the joint efforts of the all concerned to address significant roadblocks and thus unlock the true potential of mobile VAS in Nigeria. Unfavorable Revenue sharing model between operators and value added service providers and the focus mainly on entertainment based services which appeal only to a segment rather than utility and enterprise based services seems to be a leading cause of slow growth in this sector.

To maximize the advantage that 3g technology presents, Operators will have to develop and deploy innovative services that will appeal to subscribers. Mobile phone has gone beyond their fundamental role of communications and have graduated to become the extension of the personality of the subscribers. Phones are no longer only to get in touch but to express themselves, their attitudes, feelings and interest and for these reason, subscribers always want more from their phones. Perception of a good Network is not only from the voice angle but from benefits and value added services they provide. Voice has simply become commoditized and it is no longer basis for differentiations in the mobile Sector.

Operators need to focus on Value added services to survive the cut throat competition they are experiencing right now, reduction in voice revenues and to achieve growth forecast. Though presently there are quite a handful of innovative Value added services like the Remote mobile phone book back up, Savemycontacts, Vehicle tracking systems, ring tone downloads and the highly successful caller Tunes. Caller Tunes has demonstrated that subscribers are ready to adopt a service that offers them an option of personalization. Mobile users always want to carry forward their individuality to their mobile phones.

While the informational and Mobile Commerce are really struggling in the mobile VAS market in Nigeria, Entertainment Value added services seems to be more popular because they are designed for mass appeal and leisure time usage while Mobile commerce is popular in Banking industry but with few users. Simple reason is that subscribers have not just seen or perceived a compelling reason to engage the Mcommerce and others. British Broadcasting Corporation reported that Nigerians are leading visitors to its site worldwide with 61% and distantly followed by South Africa at 19%.This is a classic example of usage due to compelling reason.

In other parts of the world, sport and Adult contents (where allowed) are the chief revenue earners in the mobile value added service industry. Entertainment VAS seems to be the leading service that is driving the VAS market in Nigeria, this is because entertainment based VAS drive the market both value and volume terms. It will make whole lot of economic sense to build Entertainment content drive around the local Nigeria Music and Nollywood which is reputed to have generated N522 Billion Naira. The Nigerian Film industry has grown rapidly to become the third largest film producing industry in the world after Hollywood in the US and Bollywood in India. With the production of over 500 movie titles per year, Nollywood, as the Nigerian film industry has come to be known, is beginning to attract the attention of global cinema and it is increasingly seen as one of Nigeria 's positive cultural contributions to the international community. The Indian Bollywood has just completed the testing of short Bollywood Movies on Mobile phones at the 3gsm conference at Barcelona, Spain and by implication Indian is set for the second invasion and colonization of local movie industries worldwide but this time via the mobile phones.

The main players in the Mobile value added service chain in Nigeria apart from the National mobile operators are the content aggregators. They provide content to mobile operators, perform in-house content development and aggregating contents from other small players. They own the short codes and they have a tie up with multiple operators to ensure subscribers of all operators can access same short codes. Revenue sharing chain percentages will either encourage more independent developers or discourage them from rolling out innovative services that will promote the 3G. As it stands right now, if the operators do not radically change the present revenue sharing structures which allows them to retain chunk of the value added services revenue, development efforts might not be encouraging after all.

Growth is stifled in the Vas market in Nigeria because National mobile operators are playing safe and concentrating only on mass services for which content is readily available and chances of failure less. Entertainment value added service despite the fact that its practical value is minimal, is popular because of is mass appeal especially to youth segment and it is promoted over Mobile commerce and infotainment which has the capacity to create real value for subscribers. Mere deployment of the 3G Networks will not automatically incite Content aggregators to start developing contents. Additional investments in supporting infrastructure like in areas of Digital map for those going into location based VAS which promises to be one of the leading services in Enterprise solution VAS in Nigeria.

Prevalence of low end Mobile Handsets is a major factor in the uptake and penetration of advance mobile technologies. Many services are not performing to their potentials despite their usefulness and many others which cannot be introduced. As the mobile markets grows, most new entrants are the low ARPU end users as most big spenders had already been taken up and hence most mobile handset coming on board might not have the features that support advance technologies. Operators worldwide are taking initiatives to collaborate with Mobile phone makers to make 3G services available to more people with less entry cost through handset development, logistics and marketing initiatives. Notable among such collaborations is the 3G for All campaign spearheaded by the Gsm Association that will reduce 30% off from the LG phone that has been chosen. The 3G for All campaign is the second programme designed by the GSMA to create economies of scale for handset makers and their component suppliers. The GSMA's Emerging Market Handset programme stimulated the development of a range of ultra-low cost mobile phones aimed at first-time buyers in developing countries.

Absence of utility services, with high practical value but for lack of publicity and marketing from the developers or Value added service provider side is resulting in unpopularity of such services. National mobile operators will have to review their policy on third party services marketing. While there are no uniform policy regarding third party services marketing across the industry but most operators do not promote third party service no matter how viable such services are. Mobile commerce and infotainment services should be promoted by operators as this will assure subscribers on its workability and dependability rather through rather unknown third party value added service providers.

Lastly pricing will play a significant role on the success of Mobile VAS. Presently entertainment VAS has the best pricing because of its perceived value and operators tend at most times to use that as a benchmark for other Mobile VAS like infotainment and mcommerce which are still struggling to gain foothold. While some operators are making Gprs service available to all segments of subscribers, some are actually attempting to make it available to only post paid subscribers. Since Gprs is the chief 3g driver, its fee strategy is an important element in service development. Though monthly rent systems is the most popular method of using the internet worldwide but it might not be suitable for the Nigerian subscribers because they are still unsure of their Gprs usage. Subscribers will seldom buy unlimited use time for a service they are yet to trust and accept. Subscribers are not willing to accept a reduced suite of services in the context of acquiring a degree of cost control which is normally associated with pre-paid accounts while postpaid users have realized that they need better and more timely information to manage their spending on new services. As new 3G services start coming board and homegrown content becomes the norm, users want to have control and visibility over spend limits and service packages and will want to explore other billing options including hybrid prepaid/postpaid accounts and pay per use options. With this method subscribers can quickly sign off any service which they do not find useful.

For Mobile Value added services to deliver expected benefits in Nigeria, National mobile operators and 3g license holders must pay attention to overall service development ,value chain reforming and commercial mode creation. There is also need to gather the power of the industry chain, balance the roles in the chain ,cooperate with each other and thus build up the competitive advantage in the development of Nigerian 3G mobile value added service industry.

The Nigerian Triple play blues

In the past few years, “triple play” has probably been the biggest buzz word in telecommunications worldwide,promising as it does to boost revenues and reduce churn by offering an array of voice, video and data services. Today, integrated triple-play delivery is energizing the telecom and mass-media markets in Europe and America.

Triple play ambitions of Some telecommunications companies in Nigeria will change the landscape of communications for ever when implemented. Globacom, 21^st century and MTN with its acquired fixed wireline company,VGC communications Ltd, have made their intentions known about this innovative service and they are on the verge of deployment. Commoditization of Mobile telephony has led to a decline in spending of subscribers, forcing telcos to look beyond traditional services for future growth. In the belief that bundling of services in the convergence era will increase the attractiveness of service packages and improves customer retention, operators are staking their future on multi-play, viewing it as a means of achieving growth and differentiation. In essence they need the services to make subscribers spend more.

In telecommunications, the Triple Play service is a marketing term for the provisioning of the three services: high-speed Internet, television (Video on Demand or regular broadcasts) and telephone service over a single broadband connection. Triple Play focuses on a combined business model rather than on solving technical issues or a common standard. Unlike many other Services which operators classified as value added services, Triple play is far more than this. The challenge is to deliver voice, video and data services to Subscribers, over a single access point. Therefore telecommunications companies will be adding IPTV to their portfolios and to handle the complexity of the infrastructures they need to deliver the digital world their customers demand. The challenge lies in managing these conflicting demands reliably and efficiently, at acceptable cost, while providing the consumer with the quality of experience he has come to expect.

In maturing triple play markets like United states of America, where the service has been around for awhile, telecommunications firms are battling with cable operators for triple play market share. The cable companies offer a significant installed base of pay television subscribers and fast data rates using their cable-modem technology as they expand their services into data and voice communications. For their part, the telecommunications providers view the cable companies' incursion into the voice realm as an act of war. The telcos have little choice but to respond. So, Verizon and AT&T are rolling out IPTV services using advanced broadband networks that feature higher data transfer rates. However, the cable companies are firing back by offering their triple-play solutions in order to retain their current subscribers and to attract voice and broadband subscribers away from the telcos.

In the past, television was only distributed via cable, satellite, or terrestrial systems. Internet TV is basically defined as the ability to view video streams over the Internet. The primary models for Internet television are streaming Internet TV or selectable video on an Internet location, typically a website. Today - with the increase in Internet connection speeds, advances in technology, the increase of total number of people online, and the decrease in connection costs - it has become increasingly common to find traditional television content accessible freely and legally over the Internet. Internet televison utilizes the connections of the Internet to deliver video from a source to a target device. Some of the ways in which Internet delivered television is used include,watching on a regular TV via a direct connection from a computer or a Set-top box, or on a computer, or on a portable device such as a mobile phone ,show a channel 'live' like regular TV, or allow the viewer to select a show to watch on demand,"Video-on-Demand" or VOD ,allows low budget, home camcorder productions to expensive professional productions to be viewed .Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, both former skype owners just launched joost,an iptv which promises to give cable operators a run for their money.

Telcos must remain vigilant because the challenges are not insignificant. Those challenges run the full spectrum of technical, regulatory and competitive and must embrace the technical challenge of delivering high-definition TV and other bandwidth-intensive applications.Also must weather the regulatory storms surrounding broadband, universal service and access to compelling content. Must meet and surpass the competitive challenge offered by other sectors, most notably satellite television service providers like the dominant player,South African Multi-choice DSTV and other upcoming providers like Hitv, Fstv and host of others. Not also forgetting the ever innovating local stations like Silverbirds TV, AIT and many others. Already some are already offering specialized content like DBN which is a sport only TV channel.

Triple play, Unlike DSL, which has been aimed at heavy Internet users,is envisioned as the Plain old telephone systems of the 21st century: universal and priced affordably. Cost to consumers must be pretty much in line with what they pay today for Plain old telephone systems and cable TV. A premium triple play package which combines basic, several premium video channels, advanced video features, telephone service, and broadband is offered presently at around $100 in America. Pricing will determine widespread acceptance.

Similarly, if customers perceive video services to be less reliable than present Digital satellite TV and renting DVDs, they will not switch to triple play. And unlike telephone service and the Internet, television is viewed by more than half of the population for more than two hours per day. Outages will be duly noted.

The reliability challenge is more than just perceptual. Legacy services really are highly reliable. Fixed wireline telephony and cable TV are designed to deliver high-availability services. The design standard for telephone circuit switches is two hours downtime every 40 years, and analysis of cable TV designs shows 41 minutes downtime per year for the hybrid fiber-coax plant. Service availability is very important here since a subscriber will expect Television to work when switching it on for news or any other programme, likewise the internet and the voice.For this service to make the required impart, it has to be “always on” service.

Ease of use and reliability are critical considerations in any consumer product. The next generation technology must be easy to set up and configure and its operation must be relatively transparent to subscribers.

Customer service support in a single play world, like voice or video or data is challenging in the best of circumstances. Service providers need to attract new subscribers and quickly recoup the expense of acquiring them, while solving subscriber technical problems and answering their questions in a way that maintains high levels of satisfaction in order to reduce churn. No small feat. Support in a “triple play” world is an order of magnitude more difficult. It’s not simply three different areas in which to keep customers happy and keeping costs down. Customers expect to receive the same level of support across all services offered , seamlessly and consistently in real-time. They want one bill and one person to call if they have a problem. Without this seamless integration of service and support, they might as well buy each of their services from the lowest cost provider.

For telcos, the "triple play" represents the ultimate way to increase profits and customer loyalty at the same time. While this sounds like a piece of cake, not everyone is excited about its prospects because of the harrowing experiences of mobile subscribers presently. Customers Service levels must be consistent and superior for all three parts of the triple play in order to keep from churning subscribers.

The triple-play future is indeed bright, and we have reason to be excited. But let's not forget that there is still work to be done .

Gsm operators and their host communities

Since the emergence of mobile telephone in the 2001, combined subscription is inching close to the 30 million mark and many more yet to sign up. The potentials are still enormous given the fact that total population under the licensed territory (Nigeria) is close to 140,000,000 million people.

Good as it may sound that we can now connect to the world without the endless wait and shoddy services that characterized the pre-Gsm era, when Nitel’s monopoly hold sway. Despite all the rapid expansion and coverage in most cities nation wide, quality of service issues seems to the albatross of the mobile operators.

Quality of mobile phone services is commonly the most discussed topic outside politics and Energy issues which we are daily confounded with. Even the newly inaugurated senate had already debated on it! While the national regulator, NCC, in many instances and at different forums reinforced the importance of provisioning high quality services to millions of subscribers, the stark reality is that the situation seems to be getting worse by the day.

NCC also initiated the consumer outreach and consumer parliament to resolve subscriber’s frustrations which had taken another dimension with subscribers forming associations and even going further to advocate service boycotts in protest against poor service delivery and in some extreme cases, initiated court cases against mobile operators.

In the midst of allegations, accusations and claims by operators and subscribers alike, what the entire population failed to look at genuinely are some points that operators are raising.

Some time ago, MTN Communications had reasons to alert the public about its facilities that were maliciously damaged. Important components of mobile telephony technology are the radio equipments which are mounted on towers and mast all over the towns and cities. Fiber Optics cables also carry traffic crisscrossing the national boundaries and some of the longest cables in Africa in located here in Nigeria.

Recently we all witnessed massive degradation of services across all the networks and despite all efforts, its seems the problem is beyond them. Most service disruption is directly link to the handiwork of vandals and community agitators. In many instances, workers and their sub contractors are denied access to the base station sites to service power generators and other equipments, fiber optics unearth from the ground and severed, diesel theft and generator vandals. The irony is that the communities that now turned vandals at some point clamored for the Base stations to be sited in their community.

Most of the demands of the communities are unrealistic, ranging from multiple payments for acquired site properties, road construction, powering of communities and even scholarships!!! These are not the duties of companies that pay all forms of taxes to government. Though some of the activities of the operators do impact the environment negatively sometimes, care should be taken to ensure strict compliance with environmental regulations to curb noise pollution from generating sets, spillages from diesel and used engine oil which can pollute source of community waters.

Community empowerment programs can be implemented through engaging locals as site security, civil repairs works and immediate remedial repairs whenever their activities impact on the communities negatively. Mobile operators should also leverage on site where some basic infrastructure that can support their services exists. They can leverage on the branch network of banks and as they roll out new Bank Branches, they make provision for tower erections on the properties on a rental basis. This offers some level of security. Implementation of integrated maintenance of cell sites, will also reduce numbers and frequency of site visits for maintenance purposes. Increasing the storage tanks for diesel will greatly help in reducing frequent top up visits which seems to be a lucrative target for community extortions.

With communities and vandals taking its toll on the operations on the mobile operators and high cost of subscribers acquisition in face of keen competition, it is only natural that the subscribers will be at the receiving end through poor services and high tariffs. Just like crude oil production where you need a maze of pipelines to deliver contents likewise the telecommunications services too. The base stations might look like a stand alone installation but operationally, they are inter connected and linked with many others elsewhere and when one goes down, it might lead to disruption of services or a near collapse in a locality .

The oil communities militancy that is threatening the revenue source of Nigeria started and got elevated to this level because we did not look hard enough at the root cause for many years and now they cant just stop.

So next time you tried to make that important call and it does not connect, it does not mean that the MTN,CELTEL AND GLO are not alive to their responsibility but maybe area boys and your community people had just tampered with a diesel hose that feeds the generator which powers the base station in your community or had just chased away telecoms workers from site and you are denied access to reach your loved ones via your mobile phone.