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Maybe Voda Doesn't "Get It" After All |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Saturday, 25 November 2006 |
COMMENT: Buried at the bottom of a Google story on ZDnet UK, a spokesperson for Vodafone in the UK demonstrates
that he, at least, still thinks VoIP is about cheaper calls.
The story
in which Google and other dotcom execs slam mobile operators for trying to maintain
the walled garden approach to mobile phones services, Bobby Rao, Vodafone Corporate
Strategy Director in the UK
reportedly told journalists that VoIP was irrelevant in mobile communications, because
it is a technology that provides cheap calls and nothing else.
"VoIP is not a service. It's a technology which
provides only one thing - cheaper calls - and we can provide cheaper calls very
easily by cutting prices," he said. "We think the best way to offer people
cheaper calling plans is to offer them cheaper calling plans... The value
customers are looking for is not VoIP."
Wrong!
Sure, it often goes by the name of VoIP, but this site for
instance is about IP Telephony not just VoIP.
Yes, VoIP is one of the technologies in IP Telephony, but speaking
to anybody involved in the business they will tell you over and over again, the
real benefits are not in lower call costs, it's in the services you can deliver
with it.
That's not to say VoIP is the only way to deliver those
services, but it until mobile operators work to deliver those services
themselves, VoIP technology is the easiest if not the only way to achieve the productivity
enhancements that come with IP Telephony.
Unified communications, presence, fixed to mobile roaming,
intelligent call routing and so many other features of IP Telephony are not
available to individuals because mobile operators don't provide them. If they don't
provide them, users will look for other ways to get them.
This whole thing looks set to blow up after 3 Mobile announced it will introduce flat rate data plans on
its 3G services starting from December 1, 2006 in the UK and rolling
out to its other countries early next year.
This unlimited/fair use approach to selling data services on
mobile phone networks is seen by some operators as a threat. Admittedly it
involves some careful pricing to maintain ARPU (average revenue per user), but
if done properly will lead to increased revenues and profit to mobile operators.
This is because they are selling an extra service, data, on
top of what they were selling before which was pretty much just voice (ignoring
a whole bunch of SMS messaging revenues here for a moment).
Apparently, VoIP got dragged into what was initially a
Google complaint that mobile operators had approached Google to lobby it
against allowing people to access Google Mobile Maps on their phones.
According to the ZDnet report, Chris Sacca, head of special
initiatives at Google, told an event at Oxford
University's Said Business
School that "we've
been getting notes from some of the telco carriers who are saying 'look, you
need to stop our customers from downloading this thing'."
Sacca also criticised the operators for saying they provide plans
with ‘unlimited Internet access', but then ban applications such as VoIP or
streaming video. He's right. It's the whole Net Neutrality issue being played
out on mobile data and it's bad news for users.
It's not that the mobile operators can't deliver IP
Telephony-style functionality on their networks, mobilised spoke with Scott
Wharton VP for Marketing at mobile VoIP services company Broadsoft this week (we'll get the story up
in the next day or two).
Wharton confirmed that some Australian mobile operators were deploying
their systems to enable advanced functionality and integration with VoIP networks, but not all. These solutions (which use regular mobile calls) really need operator buy-in to make them sing.
All these network operators are madly building high-speed
data capabilities into the networks world-wide. What do they expect us to use
them for?
They will certainly be trying to maintain the walled garden
approach that made AOL such a success in the early days. Hopefully they will
see - the way 3 Mobile
seems to have seen - that opening up their data networks to other services will
ultimately be in their best interests.
Unfortunately, it seems Bobby Rao, Corporate Strategy Director
sees Vodafone as a media company not network company. It seems, Nokia, which this week released a software upgrade for its network equipment which allows operators to easily block VoIP traffic, is quite happy to support that view.
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