Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 28, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
This opens up market opportunities for mobile network operators, since their control of the network gives them access to numerous metadata that they can make available to Internet service providers for a fee. The new white paper “Barbarians on your Networks – How Over-top-Player Googlize your Business” from management consultancy Detecon International analyses success factors for market models on the mobile Internet.
“The converging markets of the mobile Internet create opportunities and risks for mobile providers,” summarises Thomas Grota, Managing Consultant at Detecon. “On the one hand, high-margin convergent products and the migration of applications to mobile terminals offer new revenue opportunities. On the other, network-independent Internet service providers threaten existing market dominance by being able to deliver IP-based offerings without infrastructure investment and relying solely on advertising-funded business models.”
Detecon therefore recommends that mobile providers focus on strengths such as network expertise, including within partnerships: “It would be conceivable, for example, for mobile customers to use their metadata, meaning information about presence, location and mobility, in several social networks or mobile blogs simultaneously,” highlights Detecon Consultant and co-author Daniel dos Reis. “In this way, for example, an end user can inform all communities with one click that they can now be reached at a different location.”
According to Detecon, an important prerequisite for such scenarios, alongside the existence of an all-IP network, is the establishment of a customer-focused IT architecture that makes metadata available securely while also safeguarding the owners’ privacy and copyright. The architecture also ensures that control elements can be integrated by using an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and a Service Delivery Platform (SDP). These components can process information from networks and make it available within the services offered.
The opinion paper “Barbarians on your Networks – How Over-top-Player Googlize your Business” is available at http://www.detecon.com for download. Among other things, it examines success factors and provides recommendations for action to benefit from the growing potential of converging Internet markets.
Further information:
- Detecon International
