MNP, better late than never?

I'm sure many of you have seen some if not all of the marketing campaign by Celcos on Mobile Number Portability (MNP). From this month, MNP basically allows you to switch to other cellular operators without loosing your current number with a maximum fee of RM25.

For the celcos, it's definitely a new competitive landscape where they try to entice and win over competitor's customers. It's certainly more challenging for them to ensure customer's loyalty. I'm really interested to see which Celco's are suffering the most from this MNP.

Source: ACNielsen

Many predicts that Maxis will loose most customers by virtue that they hold the biggest market share. Digi might gain as they are clearly the most innovative in their offerings. For the customers, we are definitely the biggest winner as the industry is getting even more competitive.

I, as a customer would like to ask this question though. Why am I still being identified using a string of numbers? With MNP, it seems that they want us to be known as 012/013/016/018-xxxxxxx forever. Don't you feel like you're being bar coded and you have to carry it for the rest of your life? I don't want my operator to know me by my number. They should know me by name.

If you look at the Internet, when you register to an email service, instant messaging or community portal like Facebook, do they give you a prefix number to identify yourself? No. You are being identified by a name given by you. You can be known as Cicakman, Ironman, Max Payne or whatever, just like instant messaging.

With IP network or NGN, we will no longer be known by the number. It will be like the Internet but in a more secured environment. I personally feel the introduction of MNP service is 2-3 years late in Malaysia. Because, with prevailing technology, the IP network promises so much that makes MNP somehow looked trivial.

Perhaps its a case of better late then never. By having MNP, the regulators expects competition to strive. Hence, prices should go down and the citizen will be happy about it. I just hope the operators will start looking at other value added services and not just engaging in price war on minutes and sms.

Price war is good for the customers only in the short run. In the long run, with lower revenue income, it reduces the operator's capability to re-invest in new technology which ultimately reduces the country's global competitiveness.

MNP shouldn't be use to further commodities the industry and this spirit has to be shared by all players. If commoditisation continues, we will devalue the industry far into the future. And this is not good for operators as they are being squeezed by customers, demanding for lower price.

As for me, until an operator can truly identify me as Mafiz Seth, I'm not switching to any side. And believe me, it's not far away for this to happen. It's closer than you think. If only the 'Truly Mobile', 'Truly Malaysian' operator awakens....

Candy Bar Vs Box Of Chocolate Vs Lollipop Vs....

It's interesting to look at how Telcos put up their call plan propositions. Billboards, television or printing ads, we can see different approaches taken to lure customers.

Many Telcos likes to go for the 'simple' approach. Simple call plans that mostly appeal to the masses are easy to market, easy to manage internally and quite easy for the customers to understand. I would equate this approach to 'carpet bombing'. It doesn't really target any specific market segment.

One rate not only averages out the market, but cancels out the opportunity to upsell the service . There are customers who are willing to pay higher. There might also be customers who can't afford it like the lower income group. These are examples of unmatched demand and missed opportunity in the mass market approach.

Today, we have a Telco that charges on a per second basis. I'm sure there are takers for this charging method. You just pay what you use. How much savings can you get? Depends on your usage behaviour. If you talk less than a minute, I think this package suits you.

From a competition point of view, this is healthy. It's healthy because the market is flooded with options and customers are free to choose. Customers are happy and Telcos are announcing big profits every year. What's there to complain Mr Regulator, aka MCMC?

After all these years, do you realised that almost all the competition is about minutes, SMSs & speed? It seems that the players are still trying very hard to win the same war. It's the same game and someone has to got to change it. It's too saturated and the price war is eroding the value of communication services.

Competition is alive, but why are we still stuck in this minutes, sms & speed game? How long can we sustain this sweetening game? Candy bars, chocolates, lollipops, they might taste different, but they all can cause toothache. If this country is to move forward, proliferation of application services has to happen very quickly. So please open up a new battlefield and compete on value and services. Not just price.

Perhaps they're just meeting the expected demand. Or maybe technology is hindering the offering of new services. The circuit switch network capacity is a scarce resource and the service charging is based on a simple economic concept of demand and supply.

In packet switching however, the whole economic changes. IP network is based on the concept of capacity abundance. The concept of duration does not exist as the customer is considered as 'always on' just like broadband. So in the future, flat based charging would become more prominent.

This is what worries me. Today we are deeply engrossed with duration based charging. Just look at the price war.

What the industry should do is to shape and prepare the market for this NGN/IP type of services. I don't see that happening. What worries me even more is, with IP network, we'll still stuck with voice & SMS! You invest and build IP Network, but you don't sell next generation services? What's the point?

To really create value, we have to think beyond minutes and data, beyond spectrum and frequencies, beyond bandwidth and speed. We have to start thinking about the outcome we intend to create for customers. And the outcome differs from one customer to another. One size doesn't fit all. This is the most distinct and important transformational drive towards a full IP environment. It's not about technology evolution. Not about 3G, 4G, Wimax or LTE. But more importantly, it's about changing people's lifestyle, improving standards of living, enabling business and industrial growth. It's about moving up the country in the value chain.

Competition is alive. But if the players continuously engaged in the same ball game, the industry is not going to grow. Competition is good. But by just engaging in price wars, it stifles real economic value creation.

Dear Telcos, there are bigger things out there besides voice, sms & speed. Start offering differentiated customer services. Treat retail customers like how you treat corporate clients. Treat me as a unique customer. You connect us but the problem is you don't listen. You like to shout out the loudest. But all I need is a whisper.

If you care about me, don't give me 'tooth decay'. I won't subscribe to your service just because it's cheapest in the market. Enough of this cheap deals. I want service reliability, great customer service and a good loyalty plan. I'm willing to pay. Hello? Are you listening? Hello?? Can you hear me?? Are you there??

"Digi to halve carbon emissions"

This is very interesting. My staff Hafiz emailed this to me this morning (read). Very good initiative by Digi to reduce carbon emission. Being a communications service provider, telcos are actually well placed to provide long term and sustainable solutions for carbon emission reduction. Basically, more talk time means lesser travelling.

I think what's missing from Digi's effort is the integration of this initiative as part of their core business strategy, i.e revenue income. For now, they're just trying to create awareness on climate change. I'm not sure whether they realise this, but in a bigger context, they could potentially generate new and substantial revenue stream. This so called "Deep Green" programme aims to reduce CO2 by about 50,000 tonnes in four years time. 50k tonnage of Co2 savings can be traded in the carbon exchange!

And this is just the beginning. What they're talking about are carbon savings generated internally, coming from within Digi. Again, they're missing the bigger picture. This is so typical. It's a good example of how telcos are being self centric.

Wouldn't it sound nicer if Digi says that they want to be the enabler platform of carbon reduction? That they can help other industry to reduce their carbon emission as well? That they provide the solutions to carbon issues? I don't know. Perhaps its already part of their long term plan to do this. But really, creating awareness is just another CSR gimmick! It's time Digi's yellow men has a new friend. A green one!

I feel the telecommunication industry is really under valued. People still see it as a liability. And it doesn't help when telcos continuously engage in price wars. It only destroys the true value of communication services. But I feel Digi is doing the right thing for now. They're heading towards the right direction.

I hope other telcos can emulate this but do more by being customer centric. After all, it's not about postpaid vs prepaid, wireless vs wireline or Wimax vs GSM. Too much emphasis given to technology. It's about enabling K-Economy, enabling economic growth of the country and changing lifestyle of every citizen in this country. And that's invaluable!

Mad Rush For 1.92...Where's the solution??

Heard the news about the petrol price hike today. It is official. Tomorrow, 5th Of June 2008, we would be paying 78 sen more per litre of petrol. Like any other car owner in the country, I rushed to the nearest petrol station to fill up the tank. My last 1.92. I'm glad that I did this early because at around 6pm today, traffic at petrol stations were really congested.

the scene at Mobil station taman tun...

My next full tank will cost me about RM47 more. Multiply that by 5, that's RM234 more a month. Times that by 12 months, that's like RM2,808 a year. The cash rebate that I will be given later is RM625 a year. My question is, what about the ripple effects? Wouldn't it result in increase in other prices of goods and services too??

So how to do? Definitely have to change lifestyle. Cycling to work suddenly doesn't sound so ridiculous does it? Personally, I say let the petrol price increase. Let it sky rocket. It is the only way that we can wean ourselves from this addiction. The addiction to oil.

Dr Jude said that despite the fact that we are in the 21st century, we are still dependent on stone age technology. He's referring to how our ancient ancestors discovered fire through striking stones and generate spark. Today we use spark plug to ignite gasoline in our engines. We have tremendous advancement in engine development but we still use stone age combustion technology, hence our addiction to fossil fuel.

I simply don't understand why there is little effort in developing and commercialising alternative and sustainable source of energy. Is it too costly? That's what I always heard. It could be costly, but our dependence on fossil fuel has cost us even dearly. You have to take into account carbon emission/global warming effects, political and social economic imbalances and the worst is the cost of human life from the so called war collateral damages. It is far more costly than the cost of developing and supplying alternative energy sources.

I don't deny the role of oil in developing the world economy. In fact, the World War II was won by the Allies simply because they have better control on oil supply to power their war machines. That's why the German's submarine U-Boat targeted merchant ships carrying supplies. The alliance depended on the Americans for oil and it was the major factor why they won the world war. Just to highlight the value of oil in the past.

Today however, it's a different story. We depended far too long on fossil fuel. It's hard to understand why there is no proper transition plan from using oil to other alternatives. I guess people always go where the money is isn't it? Where there is demand, there will be supply. And when there's lack of supply to meet demand, price will go up. Bring in the speculators into the equation, you get havoc. Speculators make money out of people's misery. I say we stop the demand.

With the prevailing condition, people will start to do things differently. They will start to accept things which is beyond their norms or culture. I would really want to push for this Telecommuting concept. It's a concept to encourage people to work from home. With broadband, we only need to go out to work only when it is necessary. Other than that, we can have internal meetings or discussions via web conference. Files and documents can be shared through secured network from the comfort of our home. Lesser travelling means reduction in business operations costs as well as improving our environment through the reduction of carbon footprint. Workers can spend more time at home and be closer to their family too.

working from home...saves money, time and improve productivity

Looking at our current situation today, Telecommuting is an important and timely value proposition that Broadband can give. I believe that the government should take the leadership. Act as an example and the others will follow. If the government succeeded in implementing this concept, they can also trade carbon savings in the Carbon Credit Exchange under the Kyoto Protocol. My bos Dr Jude believes in this strongly and I agree with him.

give telecommuting the green light

Let the price increase. It's a bitter pill to swallow but who says curing addiction would be easy? Malaysians addiction is worst because it is being subsidised by our generous government. So the pill is not only bitter, but could be acidic to some. We have been subsidised for too long. We have to adapt.

This is a stick approach and I'm taking it positively. I'm sacrificing for my son and my grandson's future. I'm doing my part. Come to think of it, now is the chance for Proton to come out with 'Green' cars. As a company that flies the national flag, they can work with the government to make this 'green' car project a reality. Be the first country in the world that has an active engagement between the public and private sector to commercialise fossil fuel independent cars. Perhaps using palm oil. It's not so hard isn't it? What's stopping them? Puzzling....

Hyperconnectivity = Hypertension

I've been blogging about how the world today is so connected in the cyber world. To many, hyperconnectivity brings about phenomenal advancement in product innovation. They call this hyperdifferentiation. Some even believe that it could impact civilisation like how the industrial revolution was sparked by the discovery of steam and petrol engine.

The Netizens, an always 'on' society, continuously sifting through the cyber world, creating, editing and exchanging information transcending race and cultures. Being informed, we allow ourselves to evolve in a more efficient way.

We have been innovating before but the speed that we are doing it today is mind boggling. We're transforming society to be collaborators as we've witnessed how state and corporate level policies are being influenced by the people's vote. Democracy are at it's best when decisions are made bottom up.

The world at light speed. Can our mind and body cope with this?

Add mobility to the connectivity equation, you get information exchange in a ubiquitous way. It's a powerful combination. Imagine a world that can be updated at the same time. It gives new and profound meaning to the cause and effect equation. Are we in a brink of a perfect economy? An economy that lives on perfect information exchange?

There's 2 sides of the coin for hyperconnectivity. One side says that it enables K-Economy. However, government's and corporate bodies are increasingly worried about cyber security. The threat is real as it can cripple the economy. But my worry is more on social security. We are witnessing today how the news on oil and food crisis are affecting the world. I believe that this threat could somehow be blown out of proportion. Interested parties could manipulate the situation by creating uncertainties in the market place.

With hyperconnectivity, these negative sentiments can infiltrate the mindset of people in a much more effective way. Any sort of crisis can ring alarm bells in people's mind. It heightens anxiety and it could stress up the market. It's a dangerous and most effective propaganda tool.

Today's effort are concentrated more on reducing cyber threat rather than content censorship. People say that there should be freedom of expression in the cyber community which I totally agree. What I don't agree is when people use it for their own gain by manipulating and exploiting others.

Freedom of expression is good, but it is those who does this irresponsibly that should be controlled. We need a system or a framework that authenticate contents. Just like how job placement services requires job seekers to authenticate their resume before being posted on the Internet.

How can we achieve this? Certainly, it requires strong political and corporate leadership. Companies like Google and Yahoo should show more responsibility and sharpen their effort on content authentication. What we need is someone or some framework to help net community to choose between fact or fiction materials.

Web space like Wikipedia is a great source of information and knowledge as contents are continuously being updated and edited by readers themselves. But the fact is, they are not being authenticated by the correct authorities. I think Wiki should be more honest and start to provide authentication services for their content.

Anytime, anywhere communication....the promise of a digital world..

Uncertainty and anxiety leads to greater risk. And there's a high price to pay for this risk. Hyperconnectivity will force the world to work in unison. The problem is, countries are at their different wealth and social maturity level.

It is in my opinion that poor countries will have no time or opportunity to learn from the developed economy as the world is already acting as one. They can never catch up and I'm afraid that they will always be under developed. The rich becomes richer and the poor becomes poorer. Hyperconnectivity will reveal capitalism's ugly face.

I have no doubt on the benefits of the true connected world. I just hope that in our quest to achieve these outcome, there must be mechanisms for check and balance. Connectivity will bring about new business models in the commercial world. Social and political engagement will be taken to a new level too.

Thus, we need to continuously review our capability in managing these changes. Not just looking at technology, but every other aspects the technology impacts on; financial, legislation and especially our social fabric. If we are honest in our quest, we can evolve human race to the next civilisation plateau or move up the value chain in a sustainable way.

No Astro?? No Problem...Youtube Kan Ada...

It's been more than a month for us living without watching Astro. The boys have been watching cartoon on DVD alternating with the mother. Who says we can't live without Astro? I myself finding it quite an experience spending more time watching contents from the Internet. And that explains why I'm actively blogging again!!!

I can't wait until this country has another broadcaster besides Astro. Like any other monopoly companies, profiteering is their one and only ambition. Oftenly customers are forced to accept whatever level of service provided as there's no other alternatives to choose. True that most of the content already belongs to Atsro, to me, this is not an issue. Content is the important pulling factor, but other differentiating strategies can be deployed to be competitive.

I wish that movies, sitcoms or programmes could be on-demand so that I can watch whatever I want and whenever I want. I don't want Astro to control my daily schedule but instead, I want to have control on the programmes. We, the customers determine what and when we want to see from TV. The technology to do this is already here and I think TM is conducting some trials with some of their customers in Penang. With IPTV (an IP based TV platform), the experience of watching TV would be more interactive and personalised.

The Americans seems to have everything in abundance, including time to watch TV....

Like any other industry in Malaysia, the government's role is to ensure that the long term interest of the end users are met. Usually, to do this, government tends to break down monopolies to create competition with the intention of improving quality of service and keeping prices low (but not necessarily affordable). In Malaysia, when the government liberalised the telecommunication industry way back in mid 90's, we saw how other players came into the picture and compete for customers.

We Malaysians benefited substantially. Although I do have some reservation in this, but in general, today we are constantly being offered and bombarded with attractive call prices and packages. However, for too long, we are being choked with basic voice and sms offers.

My question is, how can the government effectively create the same competitive market in the satellite broadcasting industry. Some might argue that the market is too small for other players to co-exist and the infrastructure cost would be astronomical for the new entrant. Well, there's one obvious solution for this barrier of entry. Tell Astro to open up their network and let other players leased their capacities.

New entrants wouldn't have to invest huge money for infrastructure but instead leased unused capacities from Astro. As for content, I think there's enough out there to feed viewers appetite. Malaysia has the most diverse viewing profile compared to other countries. Multi ethnicity and religious background brings about different content viewing preferences.

There's a need for content to be more specialise and specific to meet different market segment requirements. The future of media business is to sell more of less. Today, if I want to watch big movie hits, I've got plenty of options to do so including Astro. But if I want to watch something very specialise and specific like how to play badminton like a pro, I would go to youtube. Youtube is an example of how future of business should be. Selling more of less. Even when there's only a single viewer, the video is still on the cyber-shelf to be viewed.

Are we ready for triple play services?

I'm blogging about this tonight because I think we seriously need a competitor for Astro. The fact that I can't choose any other satellite broadcaster, democratically, it's like denying my rights to 'vote'. To beat a monopoly, the new entrants would require assistance from the government. The government must provide market and regulatory mechanism that creates a level playing field for the broadcasters.

However, it is crucial that they only do this with the customer's interest in mind. I hope that the convergence between TV and IP services would happen fast enough to break the dominance of satellite broadcasting in Malaysia. Just Imagine when the current Astro decoder is replaced with your computer's CPU as your lifestyle changing technology. The value it can create for the business community is immense as customer's interaction and engagement would be taken to a new level.

Until the arrival of this new media, I need to find my Astro card. We still haven't found it. If I call Astro for a new replacement card, I'll be charged for it for sure. But so far without Astro, no problem for me at least. I'll just stick to youtube while the kids are happy watching Transformers movies and cartoon repeatedly. We have many cartoon version of Transformers collection by the way. Gosshh..I'm surprised how this missing card inspired me to blog!!