In GigaOM’s guest column, Mr Chetan Sharma writes an interesting article on the battle between operators and media companies to deliver mobile entertainment to the end-user.
Although Media companies are in better position to bring their content over agnostics IP networks – like the ones of mobile operators are becoming-, operators have still powerful arguments to leverage:
1) Billing relationship. Operators have a trusted billing relationship with operators, that puts them in good position to charge for premium content delivered over their networks
2) Customer ownership. Operators have access to plenty of information about their customers behavior. With proper Service Orchestrator software solutions, marketing campaigns can easily be tailored to match each user profile
3) Bundling services. A subscription fee for a mobile TV channel that also give access to a premium website, are easy options to add to the phone bill and give operator more room for promotions and cross-selling.
4) QoS : Quality of Service. With IMS deployed, only the mobile operators can control QoS. A guaranteed QoS enables carrier-grade VoIP and other real-time conversational services, like high definition video calls and video sharing, that Internet players can not deliver with best-effort Internet QoS.Once the operator controls the real-time services, then it is in a strong position to bundle presence, location, user profile and IM with conversational services. Without this bundling, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are even in better position than operators to provide applications based on presence, location or user profile (including advertisement).
On the content delivery side, similarly the battle is not lost for operators if they show the determination and courage to play their cards. See KDDI example of a music service that competes head to head with iTunes in Japan.
Related articles in tech-talk.biz:
http://tech-talk.biz/2007/12/15/iphone-friend-or-foe-can-mobile-operators-avoid-turning-into-pipes/
http://tech-talk.biz/2008/01/02/will-2008-be-the-year-of-mobile-advertisement/
http://tech-talk.biz/2008/01/12/kddi-lismo-best-mobile-music-service-in-the-world/
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