Data solutions must help operators deploy innovative monetization strategies

Telecom Operators worldwide are facing increasing heat due to gradual erosion in their core infrastructure revenues. P2P Messaging is going down affected by OTT traffic. Net Neutrality concerns are affecting service differentiation and segmented monetization. As the world moves towards all IP for every mobile service, operators need to quickly turn around a corner and find newer ways to monetize data.

The increasing use of smartphones and plethora of apps and services for the consumers have put a premium on the data pipe of operators. It is imperative for operators to take advantage of this by making it convenient for businesses to connect with their customers using data as an engagement channel. Operators need to evolve differentiated strategies to individually address the subscriber market for data. These could range from offering higher data volume limits in data-hungry markets, competitive pricing, pay-per-use models for driving data usage, to even data VAS like data sharing options for friends and families for common apps.

In India, mobile penetration has reached 80 percent of the population but mobile data penetration is only around 40 percent. One of the biggest issues operators are facing is to onboard the long tail subscribers into mobile data. How do operators incentivize nondata users into purchasing data packs? How can operators help in helping the rural population access internet? Digital India, Startup India and various other initiatives by the Government of India will attract the rural population to make use of technology to improve the efficiency in their industry. We also anticipate an increasing occurrence of sponsoring or subsidizing data usage, especially for essential services like healthcare, banking and agriculture.

Data solutions are helping leading global mobile network operators to deploy innovative monetization strategies, manage data traffic and deliver an optimal broadband experience. With the launch of 4G services like VoLTE and RCS, most of the traditional services such as calls and messaging will gradually move to data. This will be a very big challenge for operators to arrive at new structural changes, organizational changes, business models and revenues.

Vice President and Head of Messaging & Broadband Solutions, Mahindra Comviva