Telecom carrying capacity I

Let's take an example of TIM Turbo. You can have WiFi hot spots available, but the same service can be contracted direct from VEx. The fanny thing is that, all the Brazilian operators are listed as access provider through VEx, not only TIM. Looks like a club. But the true money goes to VEx. Smells like Google SEM in the case of Yahoo!, early in this decade.

Androids, iPhones and akins - A new walled garden?

Virtual gadgets are the new way to make money over real gadgets like mobile terminals. Its clear that the terminals should have a fancy look, but available to social networks and with a plenty of virtual gadgets, including the old fashion voice - just as additional. What surprised me, even without a sense to be surprised, was the flexibility to encapsulate everything - TV for instance. This means that all the technology employed in the last 50-60 years are in check; mobile, fixed, cable, open TV, radio etc. The encapsulation is moving the walled garden from old fashion operators to Androids akins. So, the telecom walled garden was not broken, the internet strategy was to embed it in a walled garden much bigger, funniest and independent.

Who will buy who?

More changes powered by Google - Google TV

Not only virtual on mobile, but virtually embedding TV.

How to address the changes? III

In the proportion of 80-20, and this has nothing to do with Paretto, lies the difference among telecom operators and Googles akin. In principle this proportion means that 20% of the population has needs and money to pay for services and 80% don't. What Googles alike saw, was the power of the 80% giving feedback, tagging, testing, suggesting and buzzing. In favor, not against. The interesting thing is that, in the 90s internet world have tried to be focused on the 20% applying the model of licensing for stuff ownership and the same internet destroyed it, the survivors destroyed it applying the license free, but with freemium concept. This means free basic packet plus premium payed services. Funny! Being paid by same top 20% and using the 80% for services test, improvement and free marketing.

Who will be the first, in the telecom world, to bring the long tail to the business model?

How to address the changes? II

Just to give a piece of clarification about the differences of perceived costumer behavior, not so long ago an important strategy message given to the market was the association between mobility and convenience. Let's say that the device was properly the code for mobility. So, the attachment was coded as the operator brand - Claro, Oi, TIM etc. All of them committed with the technology they represent - WiFi, GSM, WCDMA, LTE/WiMax, Cable, xDSL, FTTO etc. Looking to be the preferable attachment for the customers. However, from there, let's say 2-4 years ago, the costumer intensified the experience of the multiplexity in being in a virtual world, and mobility is being questioned by nomadic behavior. So, the costumer can be attached whatever he/she wanted - ISP, WiFi hot spots, service portal like social network, profiles in social network etc. The consequence, they started to communicate in non synchronous mode and voice in Erlang start to drop, even over IP, being changed by data traffic. Not necessarily increasing the spare of the air time capacity. Which, by the way, was one of the rational behind of the MVNO business model.

The convenience nowadays lies in the multiplex attachment and in the asynchronous communication. Then, how to translate it into data and telecom services? So, the key is access addressed as commodity once for all, this means brands unifying mobility in motion and nomadic.

With this in mind, is this a moment for Virtual Operators?

How to address the changes? I

In the thread of Argentinean MVNO* there is a really interesting explanations about the model of cooperative, and another example in UK. I'm not against the strategy of joining forces to compete, but in my humble opinion this are signs of a different phenomena.

What I can see are the early signs of unionization against the biggest, but not recognized as MVNOs - Google, Apple and akins. Multi-brand combination as cooperative or consortium, whatever, this mean joining forces to compete and survive in a change context produced by the internet. Economy of scale or charing risks smells a sign that those companies are too committed with a service coupled with the technology they bought, or represent. Then, Someone must have said: Let's fight together. So, an MVNO looked to be an common sense among them. Is this a real rational choice? I doubt.

Again, in my humble opinion the telecom operators should dress itself as carrier, and gain real economy of scale. In the social networks, or any real life networks, the laws that governs it are growth and preferential attachment. Means that to capture the preference you have to be big and popular - translating it to telecom and IP networks means produce links with the subscribers as much as possible. The real competitive arena resides on knowledge about Social Networks "choices". In this sense be real is more important than be virtual.

Really, virtual organizations as cooperative or consortium does not mean that they will really agree on every decision taken, simply because to reduce costs someone should be cut off (cost reduction). Control important areas means power and means fight for that power. Who will survive in their internal network? The market will wait for?

Fusion is the appropriate model for this competition, because in the internet arena the rich gets richer. In the current scenario I'm afraid that MVNO is a big mistake.


* http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=26128442&gid=2448153&commentID=20489654&goback=.gmp_2448153.gde_2448153_member_25267092&trk=NUS_DIG_DISC_Q-ucg_mr#commentID_20489654