Mobile Virus Alert!

Alright people, do not panic…

… that news spreading around Pakistan about a call from a certain number that can actually make you catch a deadly flu because of a mobile virus? Well, we’re fairly certain its a fake. Trust us, we’ve been field testing these things for a while now.

For the rest of us, yes that 15-minutes-of-fame prank did end up causing quite a bit of stir around these parts. Enough for GEO News to actually send out a public advisory like the above on national TV.

It is quite interesting to look at this in terms of how much mobile technology has penetrated our markets.

On another note, yes I’m still catching up and I’d thank the readers who keep sticking around… there is a lot to report from TIECon, Job Fairs, and elsewhere so keep tuned in…

Wateen’s Triple Play and Wimax launched in DHA Lahore on limited testing basis

Wateen is apparently launching a limited public “beta test” of their triple-play and WiMax services.

From what I gather from their website and TV tickers, here are the details.

• Voice and Video Calls
• 2 Mbps uncapped internet
• Digital TV with Pay-per-view movies
• Price Point — last I heard it was around Rs.500/mo.

The CPE details are vague, but Wateen is using Fibre-to-the-curb in DHA and a Motorola Canopy WiMax equipment, so I’d say it is going to be cheaper than the Rs.30k Fibre Router provided by Nayatel.

Interesting, but no time for analysis yet — one of my draft stories was going to talk about this before it launched, but well it has.

If anyone gets the chance to test out this service, give me a comment — I believe Qazi (one of the readers) lives there?

Diallog a good example of customer-focused telecom companies

I think Diallog is one of the more under-rated telecom operators in Pakistan. Despite their relative small size in the Wireless Local Loop (WLL) space, they command a fairly loyal following in a niche, and most importantly, they have vision.

I think they have a great track record of being able to meet their operational targets with lightning speed (1.5 month network rollout?), led by the youngest telecom company CEO in the world, Artem Orange.

Mr. Orange has deep vision of how telecom should be supporting society, some of which you can even see on their website http://www.diallog.com.pk

What about that loyal following? What I always feel from the Diallog brand (even though I have never used their services) is that they strongly believe in a telecom service contract being a relationship. Just by looking at their website and products, I get the feeling that their niche is targeting slightly more intellectual people who want to have relationship conversations with their telecom provider.

I believe that in comparison with all of the WLL operators, and even some of the cellphone operators, Diallog focuses the most on creating a slew of content and value added information services.

It is good to see a telecom company go the extra mile in customer support — such as hiring a number of content writers in-house to ensure they get good content out there, rather than simply out-sourcing poor-quality content from a larger number of publishers.

Another good sign was a telecom company that actually shares their 1-year vision with their customers on the website itself before releasing new products.

A third good sign is the fact that they have a comprehensive news feed on the Pakistani telecom industry as a whole, which is great for analysts like me to visit to keep up to date on major activities.

Recently, they’ve announced that their press-releases will be done over RSS. Again, this is a good sign of support for their niche — which seems to be slightly more intellectual and forward-thinking people in ISB and Lahore rather than mass consumers.

All in all — a good intelligent firm getting some things right (although they could certainly improve their website’s stock photography)

MNP to be implemented on March 23…?

Saw a news ticker saying that all telecom operators have agreed and are ready for the March 23 deadline for MNP implementation in Pakistan.

I dont have any inside info, but lets see how this one plays out … we remain cautiously optimistic.

Analysis of Customer Feedback methods - UFONE vs MBL vs Union Bank

Companies in Pakistan are beginning to recognize the strategic importance of curbing customer churn. As a result, some of the leading companies are implementing interesting and new ways of getting Customer Feedback to get some data on customer experiences.

While this discussion should generally be a market research conducted over
hundreds of companies, lets analyze three approaches.

Disclaimer: This may not be the apples to apples comparison you expect, because I am not counting traditional approaches such as help lines, ticketing systems, etc. What I am analyzing are “innovative” new ways of getting customer insight that the three firms are using.

“Kehna Mushkil…” But why? (On uTopUp)

In this series of posts, I will try to highlight the fact that a good product name is very important for its success.

Case in point: uTopUp.

I dont know why the marketing team at uFone was unable to think of a simpler name, but the more important thing to note is the consequence of that.

UFone now has had to spend a fortune trying to explain what this product is to their customers. (I estimate they must have spent over Rs.15M the first month running these ads)

It almost seems like a plea of desperation when their ads say “kehna mushkil… karna asan”

Why should it be hard to say in the first place? It’s almost the same as first slapping someone and then saying “oh heh, I slapped you, but I’m a good guy” <– in other words, why first commit a crime and then go smile in an apologetic way to get customers going?

If this was actually supposed to be a “brilliant viral marketing idea” then — I’m speechless. Have you heard of a viral marketing scheme that people cant even pronounce?

Here is a number of names they could have used that would have served the purpose (I’m giving these away for free too!)

• uCharge (”…however much you want”)
• uZing (”Zing! You’ve got credit”)
• uFill
• uChoose (”…how much credit you fill”)

So, telecos, guys, please PLEASE save us from poor names… ask me next time, I wont cost you Rs.15M.

Who made those illegal calls two months ago? Corruption and Conspiracies in Pak Telecom Industry?

Have you forgotten already?

PTA made a chilling mistake a couple of months ago in arresting and raiding an innocent company for alleged VoIP trafficing. A mistake that came at great personal loss to the CEO, for whom we have not seen any public letter of apology.

Now a lot of us shrugged this off as “a chilling but typical business day in PK”, but most of us forgot the most important question: Who was the business who was actually making the illegal calls that Cogilent Solutions was accused of?

…

Ladies and gentlemen, I present that it was Pakistan Mobile Number Portability Pvt Ltd (name needs to be confirmed).

This is the monopoly organization that was established by the PTA to facilitate Mobile Number Portability services for cell phone operators. The central organization acts as a bridge for calls between all the mobile operators (see my previous post on MNP for details)

Is the fact that these calls were made by Pak-MNP a sign of the management that exists in the organization — i.e. are they, the pivotal organization in the Pak telecom environment, actually themselves making illegal telecom termination? Can they really be that corrupt?

Another question: The CEO of Pak-MNP is Mr. Tori Johnson (am I spelling this right?), who is also the CEO of Telenor, who have now invested close to $1B in the Pak Telecom environment. Why is Mr. Johnson still out of jail if it has been confirmed that Pak-MNP made those calls?

Is it because arresting him will result in an immediate withdrawl of Telenor’s business from PK, not to mention the $Bs in lost FDI in the future?

Somewhere in the chain of command, was there an actual decision made by someone to perhaps intentionally raid Cogilent instead of Pak-MNP to protect the interests of foreign investors?

Those would be large and seemingly ridiculous claims, but equally ridiculous are the circumstances of the raid and how that order was approved despite the law requiring three independent investigations (by PTA, PTCL and FIA) into any such incident claims before making the decision to raid someone.

Even if we dont get answers to conspiracy theories, we should atleast get a public lenghty description of what PTA / FIA are doing now with regards to Pak-MNP — how many people have been fired because of this collapse of a system?

Even if it is not a highly public explanation, atleast distribute it to the IT industry

Wateen making a lot more revenue than expected

Wateen is a relatively small mysterious operator in PK that has thrown a lot of hype and promise in the market to build up its brand and attract top HR. When was the last time a company promised to make a national fibre network, telecom hotels, WiMax, FTTH, Quad-play and more?!

Despite that, the company is still non-existent in the consumer market and I was just beginning to wonder about how their massive monthly burn is being met. Well here is an interesting piece of unconfirmed news that answers the question.

Wateen is rumored to be making 4 times the revenue that their own people had forecasted, and have already met their targets from the current strategy. This hads made them to step back and broaden their business strategy to cover a greater number of areas for the year.

Where is all this revenue coming from? Mostly from backbone network access. From what I wrote back in September about Telecom hotels by Wateen, I had mentioned that Wateen could be the alternative trunk carrier for telecos that do not want the hassle of PTCL.

From what I hear, Diallog, ARY Calling Card and a large number of WLL operators are using the Wateen fibre backbone to channel voice.

I just hope that revenue streak doesn’t make Wateen want to stop its agressive rollout plan with the complacency that they are already doing well enough with business as it is. That is one of the major reasons PTCL has been unable to deliver telecommunication freedom despite having a fantastic platform to do that on.

Who is Warid’s brand partner?

I know this is a couple of years too late, but why is Warid still working with a brand partner that plagurizes?

First we had their initial tagline “Be Heard”, which was a swipe off of an indian telecom company.

Then we have their logo, which seems to be a ripoff of Airborne Entertainment

Is it a ripoff or a case of pure coincidence?

Kudos Series - 4: Mobilink PCO — Excellent business and market strategy by telecom operator

Now here is something that I can happily extend kudos to. This is a small lesson in good strategy.

Telecom companies are running commoditized businesses these days. So locking in the most volumes in the shortest amount of time is the key to success.

So, what do you do if you are a telecom operator and you find that some upcoming competitors have technology that can help them roll out networks faster and cheaper than you?

If your target market for rollout is the vast rural landscape of the country, what do you do if you know that the total cost of implementing your technology for network rollout is higher than the competition, and will probably take longer to actually do so with a traditional approach? What do you do considering also that in your target markets, the comparative value of your brand is only nominal

Answer : You focus on the edge (well atleast to a basic extent)

1. Take out all traditional costs from your rollout plan, by engaging the people at the very edge of the network. Considering the market is rural people, give them a direct financial incentive to consider your products.

In case of Mobilink, convince the people at the edges of the network to operate their own self-serving calling facility.

Results: Your total spend on marketing and sales for the edge would be next to nothing compared to returns. You could get a free slew of micro-franchises with people constantly promoting the usage of your services within communities of trust

2. Adopt a “minimum deterrance” strategy for technology roadmap to make the rollout costs comparable with competitors.

Rather than marketing micro-service plans (i.e. individual cell-phones), offer single products for communities themselves. If a village of 15 houses can share a single connection, so be it.

In case of Mobilink, positioning the product as a PCO rather than an individual connection.

Results: They only need to support one-to-two channels per 15 or so houses. This requires a lot less infrastructure to cover large areas, and the network can be rolled out very rapidly

3. Open up the revenue model based on the value of the money at the edge

Rs.1000-2000 may not mean much at all in cities, but it is significant money elsewhere.

People within the rural target market will be willing to pay premium for phone facilities, but their premium will still be insignificant perhaps to the telecom operator itself.

However, it will still be significant to the people at the edge.

So, you open up your revenue model and make the people part of your risks / rewards structure. They promote and sell your services, and operate your products responsibly. They are able to keep the small premium that the other people in those micro-communities are wiling to pay.

Sharing revenue with these people could perhaps be the best marketing tool for the target customers.

4. Take the right message to customers

Take time and care to understand exactly what would actually peak the interest of your customers from an advertisement.

It is not a jingle, not some silly demonstration of heroics or dominance — it is a human-to-human message about a better life.

The story should clearly describe the business case to the edge. The story should touch on the emotional undertones of a better life. The store should be clear and straight — in fact, it would be more of a sales call than a marketing one.

In short, you would do what Mobilink did. Its a great ad for the product and strategy.