Five things that unified telecom operators should do

Five things that unified telecom operators should do

By Leo Wang

 

In the latest Interfax guest column, Leo Wang, co-founder of Mobile2venture, shares his opinions about the five things that unified telecom operators should do. He argues that operators should work on providing high-quality networks, removing differentiation among handset models and providing more convenient customer service to handset users. Translated by Zhang Danwei.

 

Operators play a very important role in the mobile communications and service industry. Sometimes operators even act as supervisors. In order to ensure a bright future for China's mobile Internet device (MID) and 3G industry, I think all the unified operators in China should do five things:

1. Make high-quality and low-radiation communication networks available everywhere (for voice services)

 

This point is easy to understand. Although we need communication services anytime, anywhere, and China Mobile and China Unicom's service coverage is very big, it is still necessary to maintain a "green" telecom industry. That's why CDMA became a 3G technology, since CDMA is much more environmentally friendly than GSM.

 

2. Make stable fixed and wireless broadband networks available everywhere (for data services)

 

This sounds easy, but due to competition between different standards, wireless broadband is still not popular. Even in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing, Wi-Fi coverage can only be seen in some cafes. WiMax, the technology Intel prefers, is too risky for operators to use because governments have not demonstrated clear attitudes about it. Even in the U.S., a relatively open telecom market, the CEO of SpringNextel had to resign, in part because he wrongly chose WiMax and caused losses for the company. Broadband on the 3G network also did not benefit us before the Olympic Games. Although the 3G license release in China is getting closer, and TD-SCDMA has been "supported" by China Mobile - the most powerful operator in China - its commercial prospects still are not too good. During commercial trials, TD-SCDMA's performance was not good enough. Fortunately, the Chinese government regards 3G as a political task, and has demanded that China Mobile develop 100 million TD-SCDMA users in three years. The future of TD-SCDMA might therefore be a little better.

We hope that, in the near future, some operators will let people experience broadband services everywhere, no matter if it is Wi-Fi/WiMax/MESH, WCDMA/HSDPA or CDMA2000/EV-DO. Broadband services are very important for the prosperity of the entire telecom industry.

3. Remove differentiation among terminals to provide a better user experience

Differentiation among communication terminals limits the development of the whole industry to some extent. The co-existence of handset platforms has caused inconvenience.

We have high-end OSs from Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, Symbian S90, UIQ, Linux, Palm, Blackberry and iPhone for smartphones. We also have lower-end handset platforms from MTK, Spreadtrum, NXP, Infineon, TI and Qualcomm for low-end phones. All the platforms provide totally different user experiences, and the platforms are not compatible with each other. In order to let companies develop applications for low-end handsets, there is middleware like Kjava and VRE.

These factors have caused problems for people when downloading third party software applications, including where to download, how to download, which version to choose, how to install, how to operate (since different platforms result in different operation methods) and how to uninstall?

Operators should have a preferred OS or middleware. It would be much easier for handset users to find, download, install, use and uninstall third party applications in the operators' own application "portals". In this way, operators can develop a unified experience among their subscribers. There will be only three operators in the future, compared with so many different OSs and middleware. My suggestion will simplify the whole industry a lot. Besides, operators have total control when they buy handsets from handset companies, and they can demand that companies install their preferred software on the handsets.

4. Create a good environment for third party application software to be developed

The co-existence of different platforms has also caused trouble for third parties that develop application software. The companies must invest a huge amount of money and energy to develop different application software for thousands of different terminal models. That's probably why some small software developers have no choice but to develop software based on the most popular OS, Symbian S60.

But with operators' own preferred OS or intermediate software, and matching applications from content providers (CPs) and application processors (APs), developers can develop only once, and operators can help the software marketing and publishing market.

The preferred OS or middleware can work just like China Mobile's Baibaoxiang 2.0. As we all know, Baibaoxiang 1.0, China Mobile's existing application portal, can provide application software downloads, but users have to close the portal when installing the software. Application portals like Baibaoxiang 2.0 means users can install software with the portal open. Baibaoxiang is based on Java, but application platforms like VRE are based on C language. Software based on C language is more efficient than Kjava. It's more convenient and more economic.

5. Provide unified bills, convenient billing channels and 24-hour customer service

 

The billing system is another advantage held by operators. In the future, subscribers will of course wish to combine their fixed-line phone fees, mobile phone fees, IPTV fees and many other fees into one bill. In addition, 24-hour customer services are also important. Although most services are provided by CPs and APs, people can't remember all their service line numbers. People prefer to call the operators, so if operators can take the responsibilities of APs and CPs and combine all the service numbers into one service number, that will be good for the whole industry, as long as all the APs and CPs obtain authorization from operators.

Another key point is that the lack of billing systems for CPs and APs is the reason why Chinese Internet users have developed the bad habit of expecting free services, which limits the further development of the Internet industry in China. In the mobile Internet era, operators should take on the responsibility of collecting fees for CPs and APs.

 

I think that besides network construction and the provision of services, operators should act more like leaders in the industry, just as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Nokia do in their fields. They should create a better environment and encourage the innovation of application software developers. If a platform like Google Android is run by telecom operators, it is much more likely for it to succeed.

I hope that operators in China can make use of their capital, policy and technology know-how to lead the mobile Internet business to prosperity.

 

The above is an exclusive English translation of a posting on Leo Wang's Chinese-language blog, betashow.blogbus.com. It is a personal opinion piece by the author, and its publication in no way implies that Interfax shares the views expressed. 

 

About the author: Leo Wang is the co-founder of Mobile2venture. He graduated from Xi'an Institute of Post & Telecommunications in 2001, and has worked for Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Shanghai Lantop Information Technologies Co. Ltd., Chipnuts Technology Inc. and Wealink.com. Leo Wang is now a consultant for several new companies, such as Vogins Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Shangmail.com and City600.com.