 |
 |
|
|
|
fpo50px |
 |
 |
 |
nefpo100090s |
 |
Discount telephony – Mobile partners
A lot has been written about IKEA's entrance on the mobile market during last weeks and the MVNO venture behind www.familymobile.co.uk, but very few people know the full story and who the people are that are responsible for the MVNO that has signed an agreement to offer IKEA Family members and others inexpensive mobile telephony in the UK.
Strand Consult has been monitoring this project for over one year and now they know —and have worked together— with some of the people that are now responsible for building and operating this project. Many people wrongly believe that it is IKEA themselves that have entered this market and are running this project, but the project has in fact been created by a number of Danish discount MVNO pioneers - people that have helped build the two Danish no frill MVNOs CBB and Telmore.
To understand the background for this venture you need to go back to 2001/2002, where the two Danish no frill MVNOs CBB and Telmore were battling for the attention of the Danish mobile customers. The company CBB was run by Teddy Søgaard Pedersen and Telmore was run by Frank Rasmussen. For a period of 4 to 5 years, the two companies battled over who could offer the Danes the cheapest prices and best mobile offerings.
This Danish mobile market war became legendary and in the Strand Consult report where they have described how these two market players in just a few years acquired no less than 20% of the Danish mobile market with their web-based discount concepts. There is no doubt that CBB and Telmore have been copied in many countries, but Family Mobile is much more than just discount telephony and IKEA - this concept has far larger ambitions.
If you want to describe Familymobile, you need to examine the people behind the company Mobile Partners UK Ltd and the setup they have created during the past year. The company's main driving force is Teddy Søgaard Pedersen and Martin Petersen that were CEO and CTO respectively in the above-mentioned Danish CBB. CBB was a no frill MVNO that in a number of areas differentiated themselves from many other no frill players around the world. In actual fact, CBB was only a no frill player regarding their pricing - if you examine the services they were offering their customers, they were a high-end player that were offering their customers more advanced solutions than a number of the existing Danish MNO's at that time.
Describing the many mobile services CBB launched is very comprehensive. Already in Q1 2003, CBB was offering their customers an advanced voice mail platform that offered unified messaging functionality combined with the possibility of having different messages for different callers. CBB Messenger was launched in Q3 2004. CBB WEB SMS came in Q4 2004, while CBB Forening (Society) including ENGODSAG (a good cause) and CBB Sport —concepts allowing societies, clubs, humanitarian organisations and others to make money on their members mobile traffic — were launched in Q2 2005.
CBB Family was launched in Q1 2006 and was a family concept corresponding to the concept that has now been launched in the UK by Familymobile. The CBB Erhverv (Corporate) concept targeted at the small business segment was launched in Q4 2003. In 2007, CBB launched the CBB Marketplace, a mobile advertising service via MMS, where customers could make money by receiving adverts. The list of CBB services was very long and one could say that in a number of areas it was not the Danish operators, but rather the discount players like CBB and Telmore that were driving the Danish mobile VAS innovation during the period from 2001 to 2006.
In August 2007, a number of the people that created CBB and Telmore joined forces. They have found English partners in the form of T-Mobile, Flemming Capital Invest and Peter Bamford (former CMO with Vodafone) and a number of other private investors. The company they have created is a no frill MVNE (Mobile Virtual Network Enabler) - in other words a MVNO that helps companies like IKEA launch on the mobile market, without IKEA having to invest in the technical platforms, sign operator agreements or worry about how to achieve success on the mobile market.
In another Strand Consult report they we have described what the MVNO market looks like and how it will develop in the future and additionally what issues and challenges a MVNO, MVNE, SP, BR, mobile operator or technology provider should take into account on this market. Launching on this market is no walk in the park and requires an enormous amount of knowledge and hard work.
If you examine the setup that Teddy Søgaard Pedersen and the people behind Mobile Partners UK have created, it is obvious that they are making good use of their experiences from CBB and that they are following many of the recommendations Strand have put forward in their report. There is no doubt that family mobile has been built on the top of a no frill MVNE, that with just five employees and a team of partners have created a company that can now launch many different MVNO brands in the UK and subsequently in a number of other countries.
The foundation of the technical setup is the billing platform that was originally designed for Telmore and is now developed, marketed and sold by CDRator, a company that has specialised in delivering the technological platforms that a MVNOs/MVNE needs.
Drawing on their experiences from running CBB and Telmore, Mobile Partners UK have outsourced platform operation to CDRator, to thereby minimise CAPEX and have a more flexible OPEX. The company Retouch is handling the Web and CMS tasks, resulting in Familymobile having a flexible and scalable technical setup allowing them to handle multiple UK brands on their platform.
To sum it all up, you could say that what people perceive as IKEA's mobile venture, is in fact a MVNE that has signed an agreement with IKEA allowing them to launch and operate Familymobile. We can see that the experienced team behind this MVNO has chosen a low-cost strategy and is taking advantage of all the experience gained on the MVNO market during the past eight years. We believe that in a short space of time, IKEA’s Familymobile will develop from being the UK’s cheapest MVNO to becoming one of the most advanced mobile players on the English market.
Familymobile and the other companies that will launch on the Mobile Partners platform will most likely be able to offer their customers a wide selection of attractive services on top of the services customers already have today, including 3G, Web SMS, MGM (Recommend a Friend), Automatic top up and Family Budget (corresponding to CBB Family), with more services on the way - all services that can compete with the services being offered by the traditional mobile operators.
One could say IKEA's Family Mobile concept has taken into account a number of the problems and issues that Strand Consult has described and analysed in their report “How to succeed in the Second-Generation MVNO Market”. The report describes and analyses the changes that the players will face, helping them to better prepare for the challenges on the future market. The report is thereby a very efficient tool for players in this market in their efforts to create the optimal mobile provider strategy.
Source: Strand Consult (8-2008)
Strand Consult is an independent, privately owned Consultancy Company, which has its primary focus on the mobile sector. Their clients include all of the Scandinavian mobile operators, 120 other operators world wide and numerous International companies in the media sector. Through their reports, workshops and consulting, they help create and increase mobile business revenue streams and maximise the use of all the new possibilities that arise with the new technologies. You can read more about which conferences they will be speaking at on their website.
Self-regulation at national level in the EU Member States
Mobile providers and content providers have signed the European Framework for Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children.
Fifteen signatories have signed the EU-wide Framework, which puts forward recommendations to ensure that younger teenagers and children can safely access content on their mobile phones. The Framework will facilitate the roll-out of national voluntary agreements by highlighting approaches that have already been implemented successfully by the mobile provider and content communities in a number of EU Member States.
Specific approaches addressed by this EU-wide Framework include:
The content of the Framework was deliberated at a series of high-level group meetings co-ordinated by GSM Europe under the auspices of the European Commission. The signing took place on the Safer Internet Day in the presence of Commissioner Reding.
“The timing could not have been more pertinent as this fourth edition of Safer Internet Day mainly focuses on child safety and mobile phones. The coming together, on such a significant day, of so many representatives from the mobile industry shows that child protection is indeed a top priority for the sector” said Kaisu Karvala, Chairman of GSM Europe. “Mobile and content providers, in collaboration with NGOs and other stakeholders, have already developed national codes of conduct in a number of EU Member States. The aim of this initiative is to support the development of frameworks in the rest of the EU”, she continued.
Mobile providers already work with customers, parents and other stakeholders, including child protection organisations, to promote safer mobile use. Mobile providers also recognise the crucial role played by the content community in classifying their content against national societal standards, and welcome the support of policy makers and trade associations for industry initiatives such as the Framework.
Signatory mobile providers and others, including content providers, will work towards the implementation of the Framework through self-regulation at national level in the EU Member States. The signatories have also committed to promoting the Framework in Member States where such an initiative does not currently exist.
GSM Europe and the European Commission will work together to evaluate progress made in a year’s time. Mobile operators encourage other stakeholders to join this effort in order to increase safety for younger teenagers and children. (Feb ’07)
Sanjiv Ahuja, Chief Executive Officer of Orange SA said, "Orange welcomes this Framework, which builds upon initiatives which already exist in a number of Member States and encourages all relevant stakeholders to support safer mobile use".
Wolfgang Kopf, Senior Executive Vice President of Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile, stressed that “mobile providers have already done a good job improving the protection of minors in many countries. With new evolving services the principles of this Framework will support mobile providers in continuing to adapt and improve their child safety activities. However, it is important to understand that governments and schools also have a role to play in educating children on media consumption.”
Matthew Kirk, Director of External Relationships of Vodafone Group said “Vodafone welcomes this industry self-regulatory initiative. We are committed to providing advice and effective access to information about the use of mobile phone services, as well as measures by which parents can ensure safer use by their children”.
Irini Nikolaidi, General Counsel of COSMOTE Group, said “The European Framework for Safer Mobile Use based on the principles of proactive self-regulation works towards creating an even safer information environment today and tomorrow, and we look forward to supporting the initiative by engaging all stakeholders in an active and ongoing dialogue.”
Luigi Gambardella, Vice President of Telecom Italia for the Relations with the International Institutions, highlighted the great value of the European Framework, promoted by the European Commission, and its role in providing a common ground for key industry players in the protection of minors: “We would like to thank Commissioner Viviane Reding for having supported this initiative in a timely and efficient way, recognising that the protection of minors in the provision of mobile services is a common goal for both the European Institutions and the mobile industry.”
Ramiro Sánchez de Lerín, General Counsel and Secretary of the Board of Telefónica S.A. underlined that “this European Framework for Safer Mobile Use is another positive step in the right direction. Safer use of mobile phones and the protection of minors depend on responsibility being shared across a range of stakeholders including mobile providers, manufacturers, governments, and NGOs, as well as parents and carers. Telefónica, like the rest of the European mobile providers, will continue to contribute actively to that goal through a wide range of creative and innovative initiatives, run jointly with other stakeholders.”
February 2007
Signatories: Bouygues Telecom • Cosmote Group • Deutsche Telekom Group/T-Mobile • Hutchison 3G Europe • Jamba! GmbH • Mobile Entertainment Forum • MobIsle Communications Ltd operating under the brand name of Go Mobile • Orange S.A. • Royal KPN N.V. • SFR • Telecom Italia S.p.A • Telefonica S.A. • Telenor• TeliaSonera • Vodafone Group Services Limited •
The DVB Project commended the decision of Uruguay to adopt the DVB-T and DVB-H standards for its fixed and mobile Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) broadcasting. The decision was announced on the 27 August in a Presidential Decree1 signed by President Tabaré Vázquez and the Minister of Industry, Jorge Lepra.
Undersecretary Martín Ponce de León stated that the adoption of the DVB standards will allow Uruguay to "actively participate in the process of technological development through investments and through development of software and content."
Peter MacAvock, Executive Director of the DVB Project, said: “We welcome this significant decision by the government of Uruguay. By opting for DVB-T and DVB-H, Uruguay becomes part of DVB‚s global market and can take advantage of the wide variety of professional and consumer offerings at the lowest possible prices for making its transition from analogue to digital television services. The people of Uruguay will soon be able to join the growing numbers on six continents that are enjoying TV with the highest quality of sound and vision.”
The decision to adopt the standards was arrived at after a year long evaluation of DVB and the US and Japanese alternatives by The National Commission of Free-to-Air Digital Terrestrial Television (Comisión Nacional de Televisión Digital Terrestre Abierta). Criteria under consideration that formed the basis for the decision included:
The decision comes at a time when other Latin American countries are evaluating DTT systems and sets an example by opting for the world‚s most successful family of open digital broadcasting standards. DVB standards (DVB-T, DVB-C, DVB-S, DVB-S2 and DVB-H) form the basis of digital TV services throughout the world. DVB-T is already deployed in more than 30 countries and adopted in more than 100 countries. More than 170 million devices around the world are receiving services that use DVB standards.
Mr. Leon Lev, President of URSEC (Unidad Reguladora de Servicios de Comunicaciones) said: “the timely adoption of the technical standard is an initial step to facilitate the development of digital terrestrial television by allowing all involved players to understand the regulatory framework which will be the basis for the transition to digital television in Uruguay.”
Uruguay becomes a pioneer in Latin America by combining the selection of fixed and mobile digital terrestrial television (DVB-T and DVB-H), thus ensuring the efficient use of technology and convergence of services. Furthermore, the decision to adopt DVB standards in Uruguay is strongly supported by the European Commission and European industry in general.
The Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) is an industry-led consortium of over 250 broadcasters, manufacturers, network operators, software developers, regulatory bodies and others in over 35 countries committed to designing global standards for the delivery of digital television and data services. The DVB standards cover all aspects of digital television from transmission through interfacing, conditional access and interactivity for digital video, audio and data. The consortium came together in 1993 to create unity in the march towards global standardisation, interoperability and future proofing.
To date, there are numerous broadcast services using DVB standards. There are hundreds of manufacturers offering DVB compliant equipment, which is already in use around the world. DVB dominates the digital broadcasting world. A host of other services is also on-air with DVB-T, DVB-S and DVB-C including data on the move and high-bandwidth Internet over the air.
Further information about DVB can be found at Digital Video Broadcasting project, Multimedia Home Platform and Global Mobile TV websites.
Source: WHDPR
Cantabria infinita
Cueva de El Soplao • Año Santo Lebaniego • Turismo y gastronomía
Propuestas en Brasil
Cabo Frío: paraíso a 200 km de Río • Niterói: playas, arquitectura y agenda cultural • El camino de Niemeyer: recorrido arquitectónico
Propuestas en Argentina
Ruta Nacional 40: Recorrido de la parte Norte • Recorrido del Centro (Cuyo) • Recorrido de la parte Sur (Patagonia)
Propuestas de turismo
en la Comunidad Valenciana
Ibi, Onil, Foia de Castalla • Belén de Tirisiti - Patrimonio cultural en Alcoi • Los Baños del Almirante (Valencia del s.XIV) • Mundo Naval en el museo Príncipe Felipe • Arte rupestre valenciano (Museo de la Valltorta)
Transporte aéreo
Air Nostrum • Ryanair • Spanair • Vueling
