Enablers Initiative
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The proposers of the initiative are: mBlox, the BBC and Vodafone
The Why
One of the enduring debates in the mobile industry has been whether wireless carriers are destined to become “dumb pipes”, carrying - but not sharing in - the value of mobile entertainment OR whether wireless carriers become “smart pipes”, where they add value and earn revenue by providing services to the content industry in return for money.
The global mobile entertainment industry is worth about $32 billion dollars, of which nearly half is based on the “off-portal” model. This has non-operator enterprises acting as content publishers and retailers, sourcing content and investing in services. And to enhance and deliver these services, they buy certain services from the operators. These are increasing known as “enabling services” [such as payforit], which “enable” a third party to create, deliver and bill for their mobile content or service.
These enablers include bulk SMS, premium billing capability, shortcode number rental, and location lookups. The operators therefore can complement their downstream, retail revenues from consumers with upstream revenue from third parties, either directly, as when they sell bulk SMS or indirectly as when they engage in premium billing, and subtract a billing charge before passing on the payment to the third party.
Amongst content providers, there is a growing awareness that success is intimately dependent upon the quality – reliability and simplicity – of the user experience, and that these experiences can only be enhanced by operator enabling services, which alone can give the necessary visibility and control.
As a result of operator interest many groups are working on defining and implementing a new generation of “smart pipe” enabling services, both within national and international operator groups and within various operator industry groups. To date, the content industry has not been involved.
The Issue
“Smart pipe” enabling services will be of fundamental importance to the mobile entertainment industry, because they determine the quality of the user experience the industry can offer its consumers. For example, the success of retailers attempting to use WAP Billing as a charging mechanism in their WAP storefronts proved to be critically dependent on the way that mobile phone numbers were made available to them in the course of the transaction. Therefore, the definition, cross-carrier alignment, commercial model and regulation of “smart pipe” enabling services will determine the future success of the industry.
At present, momentum is rapidly building amongst operators who are seeking to define such services. The issue is that these definitions are rarely –if ever – executed in collaboration with the content industry, and are often addressed at a purely technical level. There is thus a real risk that services will emerge that are:
-irrelevant or partially address content providers’ needs
-embodiments of an unworkable or suboptimal business model
-taken up in a patchy manner, leaving key operators’ user bases uncovered in important markets
-misunderstood by the press or regulators, leading to unnecessarily negative or restrictive reactions
Such outcomes would permanently harm the mobile entertainment industry.
This initiative therefore seeks to give the industry its proper voice in the definition and promotion of operator smart pipe enablers such as APIs for:
-handset capabilities
-user presence
-age verification
-sender-pays data
-data transmission quality of service instantiation
-data-bundle affiliate programme
-user demographic profile
-handset application control
-wallet
-credit status
-location
The Objectives of the Initiative
The MEF Enablers Initiative would have the overarching objective of promoting the most rapid implementation of a coherent, profitable and workable model for “smart pipe” enabling services, to the benefit of the entire mobile entertainment industry. Its ulimate objectives would include:
- The implementation by operators of a coherent and market-focused set of smart-pipe enabling services, based on standards which fully recognize the needs of the content community.
- The implementation of the “smart pipes” model by the large majority of operators, to ensure that the mobile entertainment community could rely on complete operator coverage in its core markets.
- The enthusiastic uptake of newly-available enabling services by content and service providers, so as to encourage operators to implement the broadest range of enabling services.
Deliverables
Specific deliverables will include:
a) An MEF White Paper simply explaining the Enablers concept, for use in bringing uninvolved operators up to speed, in starting the process of gaining media awareness and acceptance of the concept, and in helping analysts to comprehend the Enablers concept and incorporate it into their forecasts.
b) An MEF set of service definitions for key enablers – their objectives, use cases, functional capabilities and regulatory implications
c) Acceptance by other bodies of the MEF service definitions as the basis for their technical definition of enabler API standards
d) Identified needs for technical standardization of enablers by other institutions where such needs are not already being addressed.
e) An expanded White Paper examining business models for enablers and promoting the MEF consensus view on desirable outcomes
f) Market feedback, through surveys of members, on the value of enablers to operators, vendors, intermediaries and the content industry
g) Estimates for the market value of enablers, promoted to the industry, market and press, to enhance commercial interest and belief in the value of enablers
For further details, please contact Suhail