Saturday, August 6, 2016

How IMS fits into Telecom Business

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an architectural structure for delivering IP multimedia services to the businesses around the world. It was originally coined by the 3GPP or 3rd Generation Partnership Project for developing networks that could surpass GSM. This latest multimedia subsystem will help telecom companies grip the future IMS networks in order to deliver services to the Small and Midsize Businesses. IMS eases the amalgamation of video, voice, IM/Presence, video & voice conferencing over different devices thus providing smooth communication experience while substantially reducing operating costs.
From a service provider outlook, IMS allows for new revenue streams because multimedia services can be rendered over the present IP infrastructure. With this structure in place, providers can offer what we call session-based services. With IMS enabled, any IP device can establish a session with the control servers and then make connections with other IP devices to send voice, video & data sessions between the two end clients. This breaks the regular obstacles affecting end devices. The ability to separate the underlying infrastructure from the services provided is a major benefit of IMS.
IMS is selected by the industry as the lasting technology for IP based communication core networks to ascertain scalability, global interoperability, interworking with both legacy networks & web based services, also evolution to 5G Core. For operators to hold on to the voice and messaging business and stay pertinent to their customers they have the opportunity to deliver new & innovative, cost saving and interoperable communication services.
IMS enables operators to monetize various voice and data intersecting services and synchronize with the operator’s next generation transformation plan. The services act as spur to expand the data usage of end-users. These services not only fill the gap between service provider and social media & internet but also take advantage of capacity and thus enable operator to add new revenue stream. These services will also help operator to enhance their brand visibility with added advantage of social media and internet application packed with their core services. Operators can charge it on per application basis or just carrier and charge for data usage.
The IMS architecture can furnish the following major benefits:

  1. Easier to Create and Position New Applications and Services
  2. Enhanced apps are uncomplicated to develop due to open APIs and common network services.
  3. Third-party developers offer their own apps and use common network services, sharing profits with minimal risk.
  4. New services involving consistent sessions of multimedia (voice, video, & data) during the same call are now feasible.
  5. Target New Subscribers and Retain Current Subscribers
  6. Improved voice quality for business apps, such as conferencing, is possible with wideband coders.
  7. Wireless apps (like SMS, and so on) can be proposed to wire line or broadband subscribers.
  8. Service providers can more feasibly offer bundled services.
  9. Decrease in Operating and Capital Costs
  10. Cost-effective application of services is possible across multiple areas, such as Push-To-Talk, Location-Based Services (LBS), mobile video services, and so on.
  11. Common facilities, management, and billing systems are aided for all networks.
  12. Significantly decreased transport costs result when shifting from time-switched to packet-switched channels.
  13. Service providers can take edge of competitive offerings from multiple Network Equipment Providers (NEP) for most network elements.
  14. IMS results in decrease in expenses for delivering licensed content to subscribers of various types of devices, encodings, or networks.

IMS is the state of art technology for the telecom industry and is analogous to a toolbox with a rich variety of tools for your application to tap easily in to the world. In other words, IMS uses internet technologies to provide vast services and mobile technology to provide ubiquity. IMS allows user to experience all the services no matter where they are as long as they are connected to internet.

Ankit Talwar
Batch - 2016-18
Symbiosis Institute Of Telecom Management 

Online advertisements influence Consumer behaviour

Online advertising is an essential form of marketing strategy in which the marketing message is conveyed to the consumers through internet. The expansion of internet as an outgoing source has attracted the attention of advertisers to bring in consumers. The various advertising strategies it involves are social media marketing, search engine marketing, email advertising, search engine optimization, affiliated marketing. The common online advertisement layouts are floating, pop up and expanding advertisement.
Creating effective Online Advertisement
  1. Establishing clear goals and objectives.
  2. Defining target segment.
  3. Selecting target rich websites.
  4. Choosing Ad placement and sizes.

Scenario of Online Advertisement marketing of India
The fastest growing ad market in the world is India with growth of spending in digital media by 38.2% reaching Rs 6000 crore. By 2020 it is expected to reach over four times its current value of about Rs 25,500 crore due to wide rollout of 4G coupled with “Digital India” initiative. 259 million users in digital space. In 2015, digital advertisement accounted for 9.9% of all ad spending. According to GroupM it will account for 12.7% in 2016.
Consumer perception regarding online advertisement
According to various research and survey it was found that more than 60% of the consumers find online ads annoying and distracting. Placement of online layout should be given proper attention as it is one of the factors that annoy a consumer. Still online advertising such as visually appearing or display ads that include information about the products quality, price etc have a significant influence on consumers, as Indian consumers, while shopping online consider “Word of Mouth” as a reliable source than other sources.
Conclusion
Internet is becoming a standard platform for advertisement. It is offering business advertisement with various media tools, global reach and interaction services. A wide range of consumers can be targeted through online advertisement. Thus to obtain maximum out of this is by understanding the target and strategizing accordingly.

Dipankar Talukdar
Batch - 2016-18
Symbiosis Institute Of Telecom Management

SHOULD MVNOs BE GIVEN LICENSE TO OPERATE IN INDIA?

Indian telecom market is a hot spot for the telecom industry worldwide. Currently there is quite a considerable buzz about MVNOs supposedly due to China’s ‘snail mobile’ entering Indian telecom market as MVNO. The buzz which may seem new to many is actually almost a decade old. TRAI, back in 2008, had floated a consultation paper asking for opinions from major telecom service providers and other concerned entities regarding MVNO. In various countries such as Netherlands, France etc. MVNO is a reality. So what is MVNO?
MVNO is expanded as ‘Mobile Virtual Network Operator’. TRAI paper dated 9/2008 describes MVNO as:
“MVNO licensee is an entity who has no frequency assignments, but who can provide mobile services to users by means of entering into an agreement with a licensed access service provider”.In simple words MVNO is a telecom service provider who provides telecom services but doesn’t own spectrum bands or infrastructure. An interesting point to be noted is that the MNOs (mobile network operators) which serve as the parent company to MVNOs ‘does not’ share any spectrum.
Few observations made by COAI regarding MVNOs are as follows;
  1. Does not own or has been allocated a spectrum band
  2. Does not have access to the spectrum
  3. Does not own or has been allocated a RF spectrum band
  4. Does not share spectrum with MNO.

Other than this an MVNO comes under the same guidelines and regulations as MNOs.
An example of MVNO would be virgin mobile and T24 of future group. These companies didn’t purchase actual spectrum instead use the infrastructure and spectrum of the existing telecom service providers. The MVNOs buy bulk minutes from the MNOs and in turn sell them to the end customers.
Proposal for MVNOs
In August 2008 the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India floated a paper calling for opinions on MVNOs. Many telecom companies responded to it, prominent of those being
Tata Teleservices, Reliance Infocom, COAI etc. The reason to introduce MVNOs in the market was given as to promote healthy competition among telecom service providers and enable the growth of telecom sector. Also it was envisaged that spectrum be owned by one party, infrastructure by another and MVNOs doing just the marketing. Introduction of MVNOs would even serve as fixed source of limited income to the other MNOs which have been reeling under the effects of indebtedness to the banks due to spectrum auction.
Implications
The COAI along with others observing global deployments suggested that the concept of MVNOs was possible only if;
  • Excess capacity/ supply exists
  • Where ARPU( avg. revenue per user) is high
  • The market having high penetration

If observed in India the existing operators are struggling with amount of traffic being carried by the network. This is basically due to high population of the country. Operators themselves are pushing hard to increase their traffic carrying capacity so as to cater to the traffic being put on the network. So there is no or very little excess capacity available with the operators right now to lease it to MVNOs. Also if the demand shoots then the band allocated to MVNO will probably not be able to handle the inflow of traffic.
Secondly as per TRAI the penetration in the country is comparatively less compared to US and China. It was just 25% when the paper for recommendations on MVNO was floated. Although the issue remains, the prime metropolitan markets have already been captured by the top service providers. The spending power of consumers in metropolitan areas is also more so they won’t easily be persuaded to opt for services at cheaper rates with an unfamiliar service provider. This leaves the MVNOs with the rural areas. Though a consumer residing in rural area may be persuaded to buy new sim card but the income generated through rural areas is not substantial. This scenario may put an MVNO in jeopardy and if the capital invested in buying bulk minutes from MNO is not recovered as expected then the company might have to shut down.
Finally, the ARPU or average revenue per user in India is not significant. Telecom is a heavily regulated industry in India and due to various government policies and regulation call rates in India remain amongst the cheapest in the world. Keeping in accordance with these regulations, buying of bulk minutes from other operator
and selling them at cheap price to the end customer the MVNOs would have to operate on a very thin margin. This in most cases would not be enough to sustain the company keeping in mind the cost it has to incur on branding an advertising so as to gain foot hold in the new market.
Conclusion
Currently 12-13 mobile service providers are active in India right so a healthy competition already exists. India is the second with respect to the number of mobile phones users still the companies are struggling to turn investments into profits. There is also the case of tax. Net tax on telecom companies is 42%. Although the MVNOs do not own any spectrum the COAI report suggests them to be treated as MNOs. Because of this MVNOs will be charged on same grounds as MNOs. Considering all these factors it can be concluded that conditions aren’t conducive for MVNOs to bloom and sustain in Indian market.

Yash Nalawade
Batch - 2016-18
Symbiosis Institute Of Telecom Management