Mobile Voice : What Comes Next ?

I have read an informative article from Infonetics Research named “Where is mobile voice going?” As the new voice solutions arrive in da town and operators try to find alternative ways to generate voice revenues, voice vs SMS vs data usage will be a hot topic in the near future. Let me pass on some of my notes from the research article. According to Infonetics, operators try bundling phone-to-phone VoIP, high speed internet and IPTV against P2P VoIP applications such as Skype. But at the same time, they found out that in mature markets, SMS has already substituted voice. So we can maybe shortly summarize, as the market gets mature, there, the biggest thread against traditional voice revenues, in other words, mobile voice to SMS / free voice.

If we look at the Turkish communications market, with the launch of 3G, operators are still willing to gain further revenues from voice. And there will come some new services/applications to implement VoIP3G. But Infonetics states that so far in mature markets VoIP3G could not make the cut the way VoIP did to revive the fixed-line. Plus, there were several discussions about letting Skype free on iPhone and many of the operators were against this trendy revolution.

Soon or later, consumers will get bored of paying for voice calls. And same like the fixed networks, we will be able to call for free. It´s obvious that 3G is promoted with the “videoconferencing” in Turkey, but just for these early times.

Last, for recent developments in the mobile voice & data industry, check the new Voice over LTE via Generic Access (VoLGA) cooperative initiative.

Resource : Infonetics Research

Mobile Contactless Payments : Japan vs Turkey

Lately, I have read the mobile contactless report (July 30th 09) of Forrester Research. The title was already summarizing the topic : “The Reality Beyond The NFC Hype”. First let´s go ahead with some highlights. As most know, Japan is the leader in mobile contactless payments (MCP). Surveys showed that 12% of Japanese online consumers use their mobiles to make payments. This is a huge percentage. What´s behind it, is, a successful cooperation between Japanese operators, shareholders, merchants and financial institutions. As a certain example, NTT DoCoMo and Felica had a success story in implementing the technology and expanding the MCP all over the country.

If we return back to Turkey, it´s obvious that Turkey needs some innovative initiatives to expand the MCP with new business models. MCP adoption is still a decade away. First of all, in Turkey, financial regulations are not yet ready as in Japan to make it possible for non-banks to become financial services players. We are still keeping eyes on Paypal process entering the Turkish payments market.

Second, in Japan, operators played a key role to work so closely with handset manufacturers and financial institutions. The report says, Japanese manufacturers like NEC, Panasonic and Sharp work almost like suppliers to the operators or NTT DoCoMo is a shareholder in a financial group. So, this is another missing point in Turkey. As 3G was launched, there needs to be more collaborative mobile service offerings by operators, banks and handset manufacturers. Current NFC solutions are only provided by banks in Turkey keeping the operators, service suppliers and manufacturers out. Mass-market commercial launch of Mobile Wallet (Turkcell & Garanti Bank) can be a turning point in this case.

Third, the behaviour of consumers and urban/rural distribution affect the expansion of mobile services. It´s specified in the report that Japan has very dense urban areas which facilitate a faster rate of adoption and ROI. 3G launched in 2001 in Japan, and 6 days ago in Turkey ! So, for sure, needs some time to perceive mobile phones not only as communication tools but daily life devices.

These are the 3 main reasons that I noted about the early phase of MCP in Turkey. But, soon or later, usage in public transportation, taxis, parking will lead us to the usage of our mobile phones in posters, event tickets, wireless home office, shopping, printing; simply anywhere in our daily lives…

Source : “Mobile Contactless Payments in Europe, July 30 2009, Forrester Research

August 09 welcomes 3G in Turkey

Finally, on August 09, Turkey is meeting 3G and various kinds of applications. All the operators are trying to increase the 3G awareness of consumers and promote their new services. Click on the operator to watch 3G ads of Vodafone, Turkcell and Avea. From data usage fees to potential favourite services, all telco-related people and bloggers are discussing as well. After watching the podcasts, videocasts of operators, reading the comments and feedbacks of sector related people, I would like to share my opinions about 3G in Turkey.

First of all, we are all like-minded that data usage will drive the Communication Service Providers´ (CSC) revenues in following years as rural/urban population percentages will play a key role, though. We must also consider the internet usage and penetration of Turkey. Here in Turkish Internet Sector Overview presentation by ebay, you can see Turkey is the 12th country in internet users numbers with a 39% penetration; plus 6 mio ADSL & 66 mio mobile phone subscriptions.

After waiting for 3G technology many years, it´s obvious that people are excited about what the new value added services will be. Last days, I have read some 3G success stories of Vodacom in South Africa, Smart in Philippines or 3 in UK. For sure, Turkey is not a mature market with lots of growing opportunities in telecom industry. And, for this reason, 3G strategies will be dependent on the country´s own conditions.

Regarding the previous researches about tech usage in Turkey, Turkish people are so interested in using the new technologies but not so well-informed with a high tech background and experienced in complicated services. We can forecast that, in the first period, basic applications like searching the web, reading e-mails can be dominant. On the other hand, being predicated on the young generation, some services can boom. Here is my guess about the most-used services in Turkey in near future.

Social networking : Same like fixed broadband usages, websites like Facebook, Myspace will be used, especially for photo & video sharing.

Live events : Live concerts, press releases, political conferences, holiday show programmes, etc. will most probably create some interest.

Traffic cams : As traffic jam is a criticial problem mostly in big cities;  there can be a demand of camming road conditions, situations of the bridges, alternative ways, etc.

Video communities : Video, video, video…All the analysis, researches, forecasts show that video will be the top data service. User friendly video sharing communities can encourage people to use more and more data.

Adult & Gambling content : Adult content (SMS, video, MMS, text, etc..) can be an alternative service to gain revenues. But it will be upto regulations. Also mobile gambling is a promising sector depending on the  regulator.

As all the other interested people, I am looking forward to experience new and creative services in Turkey. The more CSCs understand the country´s usage behaviour and 3G-abled handsets are sold, the more we will experience these services efficiently.

Img ref : http://www.veteknoloji.com

Mobinion

That´s so true that it´s much more harder to keep on writing than to start a blog. Unlike the personal blogs, it´s even more harder to write in these kind of blogs. Cause it´s something about the mobile & internet world and you must be well-prepared to write about anything. My wish has been to transfer my experiences and earnings about this huge world. Moreover, I would like to comment and share my ideas about Turkish market and opportunities in this market.

But well, it´s  been almost 7 months that I could not post here. But I wasn´t away from this world, actually I was so much reading, analyzing and learning. So from now on I am thinking to continue, kind of a mobinion (mobile internet reunion, hah)

Anyways, maybe I can share a first overview what I´ll be discussing about.

• 3G in Turkey : Applications, best practises, thoughts of possible failures and so on…
• Mobile payment & banking examples from Germany & rest of the world and comparison with the current Turkish market

Just first topics that I would like to speak about. More will be soon here, I hope & guess.

First Homeland Security WİMAX Application(MOBESE) in Turkey

Developments, studies and researches about WİMAX technologies are continuing as you can download the latest report here in Weekly Clip Report of Wimax Forum.

What I would like to remind today is about latest advances in city-wide surveillance & security applications (MOBESE – Homeland Security) provided by the police authorities. As we remember, in 2005, first MOBESE system was implemented in Istanbul using GPRS infrastructure. But in 3 years, MOBESE system couldn’t have been expanded to other cities. It has been discussed that there were faults about the usage of technology and also some political conflicts.

However, this year, there has been improvements in MOBESE system not nationally but locally in small towns of Turkey. First in Kütahya, and then in Kırıkkale, Samsun and Konya. In those cities, first Wimax based MOBESE systems have been installed.

The first installation was successfully managed by Global Forte, Redline Communications’ certified integration partner in Turkey. You can view Redline’s RedMAX WİMAX technical solution report in Kütahya here.

With this non-line-of-site solution, the Police in Kütahya will have better video surveillance quality comparing with wired solutions. Another advantage is that there will be minimized costs of system broadening. Also, operating costs will be mostly cut with WİMAX technology.

In my next post, I would like to write about government-grade wireless and mobile solutions in the world and possible adaptations to Turkish institutions. (You can find a short copy of Nortel solutions here) I wanted some documents and papers from governmental institutions and some companies, hopefully they will provide some useful info to write about this topic.

Ericsson Consumer Lab / Turkey Report 08

2 weeks ago I was in a panel in TIME 08 Istanbul conference. It was about the market and consumer research of Ericsson for Turkey. There were really some interesting parts that I would like to share. Moreover, I also want to specify my ideas about the results.

First of all, the research is based on the data from 1000 consumers in a large age scale from different socio economic profiles. According to the report, Turkish consumers are so interested in new technologies but technology usage is under the world average. Maybe that can be related with the per capita net income like the other countries in the same interest group, India, Egypt, Brazil. The usage of high speed internet access and laptops is increasing, unsurprisingly. Cause, in the last 5 years, we are living a great change from dial-ups to wireless and mobile broadband.

In the report, there’s an important part about the usage of technology. Like the Russians and Italians, Turks love to use the new technology with the help of someone. I think it’s quite noteworthy. In my opinion, the reason is basic. We are used to the visuality instead of the wordings, technical drawings or procedures. As an example, let’s say I have bought a new mobile phone. I will probably prefer asking a friend how to use it rather than reading the manual or searching how-to sites. But still, this is my personal idea according to my observations.

On the other hand, Turkish internet users mostly struggles with uploading, downloading, chat and social networks. Maybe this proves the big numbers in Facebook, Msn Messenger and file hosting sites. Another interesting result of internet (non) usage is 20% of candidates don’t use internet and don’t think to use in the future.

Now, let’s have a look in the results of the mobile&fixed line statistics. A big amount of people have both mobile and fixed lines. For example, in India and South Africa, most people only use mobile phones. Maybe in Turkey, fixed line usage can be traditional. As a very easy example, a Turkish family immediately fixes a line after moving to their new house. But at the same time, mobile usage is on the tops. 97% of people talk on the phone and 63% of them send a SMS at least one time a day and average durations and numbers are increasing continuously.

What about mobile broadband ? Only 19% of people know what 3G is. However, half of these people are eager to use mobile services every day. And the propensity shows that mobile broadband will be much more used than fixed broadband.

All these results show that here in Turkey, there’s a great market potential of mobile services. People are willing to use it if the services are user-friendly, easy to understand and cheap or free. As the VoIP is more and more in our lives, soon SMS / Voice will not be the money earning areas. With the help of 3G, 4G, WİMAX, LTE, etc. solutions, value added services and the providers of these services will be on the stage. These developments will also change the way of doing business. If we analyse the youth potential of Turkey and the demand of using mobile&internet services, we can feel the excitement about the more connected, faster, more flexible and converged country.

ps: You can download the whole report HERE (Turkish version) : Ericsson Consumer Lab Turkey 2008

Let the world connect !

From now on, I will be sharing my earnings through this blog : “telcoscope” What I aim posting here is to share my searches, my ideas and my knowledge. Personally, I just believe that the future will be shaped by internet, mobile, telecommunications or shortly technology. The idea “connecting people” and “easing lives” is so enthusiastic that I enjoy it more and more…

I will try to post ever so often and try to learn more and more…

Please feel free to contact me about any topics here. Moreover, I will be so glad to hear from you…

Paymo, An Efficient Model for Merchants ?

In the mobile payments market, we usually see 3 cases (sure it’s changing rapidly), banks providing mobile services, telecommunication firms providing it and cooperation between banks and Telcos. Apart from that, here we have lots of startup mobile service providers and Paymo Inc. is one of them who is targeting 3 billion customers worldwide. They have an appetizing expression for the merchants(internet sites, mobile internet sites,etc.) : “Paymo delivers 3 billion new customers for your business.”

Plus, On July 08, they raised $5 mio from angel investors. Though, the company is pronounced as the first company to provide global micro payments service for online merchants. For me, the main segment Paymo focuses is the merchants than the consumers. These words in Faissal Houhou’s profile, VP Business Development International at Paymo., “Paymo is now focused on solving the needs that merchants have for a global mobile payments solution. For online merchants, PayMo is revolutionary. For consumers it will feel comfortably familiar, being based on SMS and Premium SMS / WAP interactions.” proves it.

Soon, I d be providing more details about Paymo if I can get some detailed info from the team. By the way, as a consumer I recommend you to try the Demo in the site.

1. Just write your mobile number.

2. Confirm the SMS you received.

3. Here is your product available !

Next : I will be posting about Mpayy…

A Survey About Mobile Payments

Last week, I tried a little survey about the usability and awareness of mobile money transfers. I used the FriendFeed contacts and my university mail group as the candidates and got 30 answers back. The candidates were between 23-45 years old which is the target age interval for mobile services. Let’s have a look at some of the feedbacks.

Ali Haydar Ünsal, who has a deep experience in banking, is complaining about forgetting the pins/passwords in shopping but still uses frequently for money transfers. Ekim Nazım Kaya, founder and CEO of Botego finds it the easiest and simple way of money transferring. Meriç Kara, a technology editor, and Y. Emre Güzer, an e-commerce expert, uses it in case of forgetting their wallets home and upon sisters’ insistent demands. On the other hand, 60% of my colleagues from university don’t use it and only 5% of them are using properly. Some of them complain about advertising deficiencies.

Having these results make me think about possible improvements in marketing the mobile money transfers and payments as well.

First of all, I believe that, a payment mobilizer must determine the optimum mass for introducing and advertising the product. After the innovation process and launch of the product, the most important part is finding the correct consumers and effecting consuming part of their brains. Not only in mobile payments, but also in other sectors’ products, we see that there are lots of idle facilities and products which are not used and analysed by the owners.

Second, it’s so important how you positioned and named your product. If the consumers (another result of the survey) mix your product with other similar products, you can not have loyal consumers. You must highlight the difference, advantage and excellence (if there is) of your product. Also, it’s beneficial to show the specific uses of your product. For example, in this example, catchwords like “You forgot your wallet home, no problem!” or “Maybe your friend needs money right now in his nature trip” or “You had to hurry to take a taxi ? Still no problem !” , etc…

Third, people must understand the advantage to use your product. Why should they need your new mobile money transfer service against the typical services ? Linked with promotions, online campaigns, location based games, advergames and fixed time limited contests ( e.g. On this Saturday, between 1 – 5 p.m., whose friend draws money the first gets the big award)

In my opinion, these are the main and well known ciritical key points of implementing a mobile transfer / payments service.

Android Banking

Last days, I am hearing so much about launches of Visa’s mobile applications. Last month, again, Visa announced that they will be delivering Visa mobile applications for the Android platform. You can read about the launch here or here. During the launch there s a key sentence from Global Head of Product that I really loved. “combining two of the world’s most powerful and ubiquitous consumer innovations, electronic payments and mobile technology” These words always increase my enthusiasm about the joint of mobile & internet & payments.

The mobile services developed for Android will include, shortly, alerts against fraud, discount&loyalty offers from 3rd parties and merchants, location based services providing coordinates of merchants promoting, nearby ATMs through Google Map/Earth.

If you are wondering about Android platform developed by our biggest lovemark, GOOGLE, you can check Google’s Android 2.0 page or you can enjoy the video about how they created it as an open source project. Plus, see the applications in T-Mobile-G1 mobile phone, I guess still there are lots of people who haven’t touched it yet including me

What I want to talk about Android is the possible opportunity for the banks. When Apple distributed i-phone in the Turkish market with Turkcell and Vodafone, TEB, Akbank and GarantiBank were the proactive ones who improved mobile banking services for iphone. Now we are not sure when we’ll be able to see Android applications in Turkey, hopefully in 2009, but still mobile service providers, telcos and banks must be creating new and useful applications for their consumers.
Especially, the location based promotion model can be used for bright ideas. Finishing this post, I recognized that I must search more about location based payment & promotion & campaign models.

ps: Unfortunately, while I was editing this post, all “blogger” based blogs were banned in Turkey ! Sometimes I really feel the irony working on these topics in a “banned” country.