As announced on the Perimeter blog, on October 14th last Anwesh got to present our joint paper on “A User Centric Always Best Connected Service Business Model for MVNOs” during the Mobile Connectivity Platforms session of the Business Models for Mobile Platforms (BMMP 10) workshop.
We’ve taken a good hard look at the current state of the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) business model, which is mainly based on the concept of reselling minutes (cheaply), and really it seems the long term viability of the MVNO is unclear from the existing telecom industry structure.
But we believe there is a big opportunity for MVNOs in the way they can offer IP-based communication services and we think the model has to change from Value Chain to Value Network.
In our view the vertical integration world of the telecom industry will be unable to satisfy the new range of value added services (VAS) and we’re sure that more collaborative business models based on core competencies are likely to emerge. We think that next generation mobile services will leverage robust access platforms, with the emergence of a dedicated service composer.
Given this view we think MVNOs are in a better position to deliver innovative VAS as more tightly integrated partners with equipment vendors and through our paper we introduce a new MVNO as a Broker (MVNOB) model.
Take a closer look at the slides as we provide an analyses of the characteristics of our conceptual MVNOB model.
The presentation raised some interesting comments and questions from the audience as it was seen to be disruptive to the present mobile communications business model. Most of the presentations at the conference and workshops were heavily in favour of mobile operators while we presented the opportunity for virtual operators in the changing telecommunications landscape.
Some of the questions/comments from the audience which we need to consider are:
- Why is MVNOB not a threat to the MNO?
- What will happen will MVNOB start creating services themselves to satisfy a unique opportunity in the market?
- Nokia-Siemens Networks (equipments vendors) are good candidates for MVNE.
- Is this something theoretical or is it something real happening in process?
- What is the technology enabler?
- What about information flow with regards for missed call, unavailability for example, among various operators and MVNOB?
- How tightly or deeply will the MVNOB be integrated with the MNO?
- Radio spectrum sensing issues – Broker platform can lead to power shift from the operators to broker and is highly disruptive to the present industry structure.
I must admit I’ll have to take a little to time to address each one of these questions and I wonder do you have any other questions to add?
Update: The paper is now avaialble on IEEE Xplore “A user centric always best connected service business model for MVNOs”