Voice and SMS may no longer be the key drivers of cash and revenues for mobile operators, but the phone is still, despite all its other functions, a communications tool. Messaging remains a key battleground still, even if cellcos are increasingly moving away from their specialized networks and creating their own over-the-top offerings to fend off Skype and WhatsApp.
Telefonica Digital’s TuMe has been a flagship example, and the Spanish carrier’s innovative new business unit followed that with TuGo, which provides that simple but hugely attractive function, the ability to make and receive calls and texts over Wi-Fi, but using the normal mobile phone number. This provides a differentiator against the OTT brigade, rather than just a me-too, like TuMe or the similar carrier apps such as Orange Libon and T-Mobile USA Bobsled.
A similar approach was seen at cableco Telenet in Belgium, and has gained prominence in that firm’s negotiations with Liberty Global, which wants to buy out the stake it does not already own in the smaller company. The valuation put on Telenet by UK bank Lazards would only be justified if it could increase its mobile market share from just 1% to 16%, argued Liberty, but while that may be a pipe dream, the cableco is showing the potential to be disruptive with Wi-Fi homespots and related services. One is an app, created for it by a firm called Triiing, which allows Wi-Fi calls to be made and attributed to the customer’s Telenet landline.
So it comes as no surprise that mobile operators are racing to form partnerships with OTT voice and messaging specialists. The latest is in Japan, where NTT Docomo has struck a deal with
LINE, one of the leading social messaging app providers in the country. The allies will develop
original LINE applications for Docomo smartphone users, as well as encouraging offload by tempting consumers across to Wi-Fi, with free voice calls and messages.