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Monday, April 22, 2013

Fixed line nightmares vs simple mobile

...and why Mobile Termination Rates need to fall

James Rosewell writes:

Due to growth in staff numbers my business (51Degrees.mobi) is in the process of moving offices. Coincidentally I'm also moving our home broadband. It’s not been a pleasant experience. This got me thinking, because a few weeks ago on thefonecast.com we discussed why Ofcom isn’t treating Mobile Termination Rates (MTR) in the same way as fixed-line termination rates. The mobile industry justifies higher MTRs on the assumption that a mobile network costs more to run than a fixed-line network. It was certainly true when the fixed costs of running a mobile network had to be shared across a relatively small number of customers, even if they did pay a fortune for their contracts and terminals. Intuitively I'd say that’s just not true anymore.

My recent experiences suggest the cost of running a fixed-line business has to be more than a mobile business. Here’s why.

Take Plus.net. Their tag line is “We’ll do you proud”. If by “proud” they mean providing 2 hours' notice of an engineer visiting, then sending an e-mail informing of a new appointment, only to cancel it and move it back within 1 hour, I'd say they were right. If by “proud” they mean having call centre staff that no matter what options you select on the IVR seem incapable of resolving a problem without transferring you to another department, then they’re doing very well.

Beunlimited, who I recently moved a broadband connection to, managed to disconnect the building's security system and then refused to fix it as it was someone else’s line!

Then there’s BT themselves. The Openreach engineer left informing us the broadband was working when it wasn’t. 4 calls to various BT call centres later we discovered that the broadband wasn’t actually connected and another date 2 weeks in the future had been scheduled to do this. What was the Openreach engineer doing for 2 hours, we wondered?

Other friends and business owners tell me similar stories. Just look at BT's own forums.

A common factor is BT Openreach. Plus.net and Beunlimited have marketing campaigns that talk about how wonderful they are. They build excellent initial order-capturing web sites with tempting offers and, in the case of Beunlimited, a call centre that don’t transfer you to other departments. However they all rely on BT. Chris Stening, Managing Director of Beunlimited, blamed BT entirely when he was asked about disconnecting another businesses phone lines. Plus.net blamed BT for changing dates on them. Is there any other industry where businesses distance themselves from a single supplier in this way?  Why these businesses went about building a brand around being different when they can’t get their major supplier to adopt those brand values is beyond me, but that is a subject for another day.

In contrast we recently moved our business mobile phones to 3 UK. The SIM cards arrived in 2 days, the numbers ported across when we expected, and a setup SMS arrived to configure the phone. My only complaint is that they didn’t capture the Mobile Number Portability request with the initial order, instead having a form buried on the web site to complete this final part of the order.

Mobile networks just don’t have the single supplier problems fixed-line operators have. They’re not dependent on a common inefficient company that has no incentive to improve due to its monopoly position. They can control how the people that represent them in front of the customer are trained and behave. They can make their call centres, sales staff and processes efficient. Yes, they can still get it wrong, but they don’t have these inefficiencies to manage.

In conclusion, the fixed-line telecoms industry needs to put more pressure on BT to provide the service their brands demand. Ofcom needs to reduce MTRs faster.

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Opinion Articles

‘The Eyes Have It’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

DoCoMo are one of many network operators and handset manufacturers demonstrating innovative new products as Mobile World Congress. Our eye was caught by the employee demonstrating “Eye Controlled Earphones”. It’s a good job the ladies from the CBOSS stand weren’t walking past at the time.

Author: The Fonecast
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'Mobile Money Monday' at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Monday’s Mobile World Congress conference agenda dedicated one of 4 streams to Mobile Money - Transfers, Transactions and Technology allowing all stakeholders to share experiences and debate the future of Mobile and Money.

Two types of service dominated presentations and panel discussions; Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enabling payment at traditional Point of Sale (PoS), and the Mobile Wallet replacing plastic or cash.

Author: The Fonecast
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‘Innovation Corner’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Here’s my pick of the 3 most innovative companies I’ve uncovered at the 2010 Mobile World Congress.

Cootek.com win the prize for simplest innovation... an accurate touch screen keyboard. They’re a few months away from being ready to release the software to handset manufacturers, but the demo handsets worked very well. The keyboard assumes the user is not going to press the intended key, but in fact might miss and press another key in the same area. Based on this knowledge and an extensive dictionary of words and language context, it’s able to determine the intended word with surprising accuracy. I sincerely hope their technology will be made available for the Nexus One in the not too distant future.

Author: The Fonecast
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Google “Mobile First” from Eric Schmidt’s Key Note at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, presented a compelling vision of a mobile centric future. The phone has become the “high value end point” for Google services enabled by a combination of increasing handset power, mobile data networks and cloud computing. By far the scarcest resource is the bandwidth available through the mobile data networks. Google appear committed to work with Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to maximise bandwidth usage, although several audience questions suggested scepticism from the main stream mobile industry. Eric expressed a need to maintain a harmonious relationship with MNOs stating Google could not operate its service on mobile devices without their co-operation.

Author: The Fonecast
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The great Windows Mobile 7 conspiracy theory

Mark Bridge writes:

I like a good conspiracy theory. A good one, mind you. None of this “Funny thing happened on the way to Mars” nonsense. Oh no, not me. And, despite occasionally mirroring Jerry Fletcher by balancing a bottle on the door handle, I’ve never been inclined to publish such a theory. Until now.

You see, it’s Mobile World Congress in a fortnight’s time. Which is when the great and the good of the mobile industry – along with their mates and hangers-on – head for Barcelona. Microsoft will be there. They’re holding a press briefing on Monday afternoon. And there’s a lot of talk about Windows Mobile 7 being (unofficially) on the agenda. But where’s the evidence?

Author: The Fonecast
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