New innovative services -backup/restore and push-that will increase data revenues will enable operators and service providers to continue pushing the limits of 2.5 and 3G networks. CARLOS OLIVEIRA elucidates the potentialities..

Carlos Oliveira is the Co-Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of MobiComp which creates value for mobile operators and service providers through the protection, sharing and discovery of mobile content. Oliveira was decorated by the President of the Portuguese Republic in 2006 in recognition of his entrepreneurial work..


As we all know, good business (and certainly good marketing) is about finding what the markets actually wants - or even better, needs -and then providing a solution that meets those needs. Unfortunately it seems to be a lesson that mobile operators, manufacturers and vendors have sometimes forgotten in recent years. Instead they've subscribed to the 'build it and they will come' philosophy, particularly when it comes to data services, which hasn't yielded the anticipated results.

Over and over again we hear claims about amazing services and functionality that supposedly add authentic value to customers and is genuinely useful: the only problem is that take-up of high-value data services in India demonstrates quite clearly that customers aren't subscribing to these services as quickly as we'd all like. Cost is clearly a big issue. So what is the killer app for driving mobile data revenue in India? I believe that one area more overlooked than any other is that of security. The mobile device is now becoming an increasingly crucial part of everyone's lives, and for evidence you need only look at the astonishing number of SMS votes regularly cast on Indian Idol, a popular reality television show.

The Premise for Backup/Restore Services
Mobile devices have an ever-increasing amount of personal (and often confidential) data, names, addresses, phone numbers, photos, and other data - all of which we increasingly rely on. But what happens when a user loses his/her device? Or has it stolen? Everything is lost. For users it's a painful process. They have to reload (and in some cases repurchase) all their lost data, all over again. For business users, it could be catastrophic, given that, increasingly, the mobile device can be akin to carrying your corporate server around with you.We all know that mobile phone sales have skyrocketed faster than any other market in India. Unfortunately, so too has phone theft.

• According to mobile phone information Website, Fonearena.com, many insurance companies simply refuse to provide services in the Indian marketplace.
• Just across the border in Pakistan, wealthy residents of Lahore have been demanding that the local police institute some kind of mobile phone tracking system to help control the crime.

It's a problem that clearly needs a solution as the population are clearly not using manual backup systems and sophisticated tracking systems like the one mentioned above are hardly suited for the vast Asian continent. Innovative operators around the world are now offering their customers a Backup & Restore that protects all types of data - including rich media like photos, video and audio - without the user having to ever think about it.

Backup and Restore is easy for consumers to use and understand and is a service that people are willing to pay for because it meets a genuine need, not a manufactured one.
For example, users can upgrade mobile devices without the tedium of having to re-populate the new device with all their existing information. They can also use the system to 'juggle' high-bandwidth content on a mobile device that may often have a limited memory.

Perhaps the most obvious benefit that backup and restore offers is that it's affordable. Yet, most importantly for operators and service providers, it represents an entirely new revenue stream that is relatively easy to implement and manage - providing an excellent return on investment.

Pushing relevant, high-value, mobile data services
Another new service in the telecoms market enables operators and service providers to continue pushing the limits of 2.5 and 3G networks by giving users the trust and confidence that the high value content they generate and purchase is safe.However, the evolution from a novice to an advanced user can be a long one - perhaps longer than those of us in the mobile industry sometimes care to admit. My eye was recently drawn to a survey in a UK publication Cellular News that claimed 70% of Britons only use four functions on their mobile phones (calls, text, alarm clock and camera). This only served to confirm the oft-held view that operators and providers know too much about mobile technology; while users don't know enough.

What mobile users really need is motivation to engage with the genuinely useful, value adding data services out there - and this again, is especially relevant in India, where mobile phones now outnumber conventional ones. Outside of their comfort zone of SMS, ringtones, camera and address book, users undoubtedly need a push. The word "Push" itself may seem like anathema in the age of search marketing. But the advent of mobile content discovery solutions now answers a major question for operators.

How can you get relevant, high-value, mobile data services in front of mobile users in an effective, unobtrusive way? Simple. By pushing personalised information to subscribers via an always-on, scrolling 'ticker' that runs along the bottom of the screen when the device is in idle mode. The idea of a ticker is, of course, nothing new. It's been a mainstay of news and particularly sportscasting, for many years. But now it's being used as a sales and marketing tool in the mobile world by effectively providing a direct channel between operator and user - enabling operators to raise user awareness of new mobile services, subscriptions and products.from ring tones and wallpaper to subscriptions and paid-for content from major brands and portals.

It's easy to use: The customer receives a message that runs along the bottom of their screen in idle mode. If what they see interests them they click once. From here they are able to access the service in question with a single click. And, of course the ability to reach millions of users through a simple push-based marketing channel is a gilt-edged opportunity for many advertisers who are increasingly finding themselves being tuned out of traditional media. Their dollars could help make these services more affordable (perhaps even free in some cases), thus removing another major barrier.

But (and it's a big but), advertising has to be balanced with the need to retain the integrity of the service. Quite simply, if content tips too far in favour of the advertisers, users will stop using it. In fact, we've found that the best way to build a really effective, sustainable content discovery solution is to give users the ability to augment the content that operators push to them via the ticker, with their own personalised 'channels' of content - whether it be signing up to aggregated content from major brands and portals, or subscribing to content "off menu" - from blogs to RSS feeds.

Even if the services they choose are free, there's no doubt that Web traffic - and thus online purchases - will be driven as a result. This has certainly been the experience of many customers in Europe who have used the ticker not just to drive revenues across the board, but to start getting a better understanding of their users, what they want and need. We all know that personalised content is important; and when it comes to mobile content discovery the smart operators will study what their users voluntarily subscribe to, and then start pushing relevant content that is personalised to that users' profile. Thus, a win-win situation starts to emerge where users get genuinely useful content pushed to them, some of it free; operators enjoy not only increased loyalty but also increased revenues.

Just to be clear, we are not talking here about "on-device" portals here. One of the biggest drawbacks of on-device portals is simply that they can be difficult to find and use, so customers simply don't engage with them. A service like Active mTicker simply extends the existing portal strategy onto the mobile device rather than recreating what already exists. And, of course this is an approach that works perfectly for the next big innovation: mobile TV. Will programming be literally broadcast in the same way that conventional TV shows are currently? Probably not. It's far more likely that users will sign up for videocasts and other modular content in the same way they currently download podcasts, for instance. One thing is clear that even the most sophisticated mobile users want a simple, time-efficient and inexpensive mobile experience. What better tool than mobile service discovery to help them achieve these goals and thereby increase ARPUs for operators at the same time? .