Show me the money – The future Business models for mobile Broadband Services

Many people are talking about the mobile broadband market, what it looks like and how it will develop. At Strand Consult we have spent a great deal of time analysing this market and examining how operators and content providers can make money on developing, marketing and selling services.
 
Today there is at large global market for premium value added services in the mobile world. It started with ring tones and logos and has since developed into a multi billion euro industry with a large value chain allowing different types of market players to work together to develop, market and sell various types of services that consumers can use on their mobile phones. The foundation of this industry is the open garden strategy that operators all over the world have launched, making it possible to market and sell services across operators’ networks.
 
Strand Consult was the first company in the world to describe this business model in a series of reports that we published in 1998/1999. We know that it was these reports and the many lectures and workshops based on the reports that we held from 1999 to 2003 that was one of the most significant reasons why many operators chose this business model that was created in Norway and that has since spread across the rest of the world. Today it is easy to develop, market and sell services for mobile telephones across many networks, types of phones and in many countries.
 
In our report Show me the money – The future Business models for mobile Broadband services we have described how we believe the value added services market will develop from the mobile telephone market to mobile broadband and later to ordinary broadband. We believe that in the same way that there today is a business model for mobile services for mobile telephones, there will also be future business models for broadband services that launch in the mobile broadband universe and that thereafter spread to ordinary fixed line broadband. We call this model the BCAP model – Broadband Content Access Provider model.
 
From an operator’s and content provider point of view, the model we have described has a number of advantages – advantages that we believe will quickly make this business model very popular and ensure the growth of the broadband services market. This will result in both operators and content providers seeing this as a win-win situation. The 10 largest advantages that we would like to emphasise are:

– The model is mature; operators and content providers have positive experiences from the mobile services market.
– The model will give both operators and content providers new revenue streams and thereby create growth.
– It is easy to develop and market services that run on PCs. 
– The BCAP model enables operators to easily use their billing systems to charge payment for these new services. 
– The operators can limit their CAPEX on platforms for the new services – the content providers will drive the services market.
– This is a no cure no pay model, giving operators more flexible OPEX. 
– As services will be delivered across all types of networks, marketing costs will be limited. 
– The model will create a dynamic market with many services, allowing customers to choose the best services. 
– The structure for implementing regulation of this business model is in place and some of the experiences from the mobile services market can be reused. 
– End-users do not need to learn how to use services on their PCs in the same way as they had to on their mobile telephones. 

If you are interested in learning more about the mobile broadband value added service market and how it will develop, please order Strand Consult’s new report Show me the money – The future Business models for mobile Broadband,  that examines in depth the mobile broadband market and the new revenue streams that operators and content providers can acquire in the mobile broadband market. Selling flat rate mobile broadband is not good business – especially when traffic is growing and most operators are today actually using their voice revenue to subsidise their mobile broadband business.