An MMS revolution from a service perspective.

The multimedia messaging service era is just beginning, but it's already created a monster. That monster is mobile blogging. "In the coming years, it has potential to wreak havoc on everything from carriers' marketing plans to their billing systems".

"The power of its threat is that when groups of users employ their wireless phones to coordinate collective activities — an application that may not have been imagined by the carriers themselves — the industry will have to learn to respond quickly, with new pricing structures, promotional strategies, service reliability guarantees and network management gymnastics".

full story in Telephony Online

[Smart Mobs]

BPO: The Indian View.

Knowledge@Wharton features an interview with Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom, India's apex organisation for software companies. Some excerpts:

In India, more than 99% of all call center workers are college graduates. In the U.S., there are no minimum education qualification requirements to work in a call center.

According to a NASSCOM-Hewitt Associates survey, the average salary of a call center worker in India is $180 a month. This is five times the country’s per capita income. For a fresh college graduate, a call center job pays about 2.5 times as much as other job openings.

The software services and BPO services export industry in India has grown its revenues from $6.2 billion in 2000 to $7.7 billion in 2001 and $9.5 billion in 2002. In 2003, NASSCOM estimates the industry will grow its revenues to $12 billion.

[E M E R G I C . o r g]

VoIP + WiFi

Red Herring (yes, it's back) writes that "combining two hot technologies makes telcos seem so 1998."

When the University of Arkansas wanted to trim the cost of intra-campus calls, it bypassed its local carrier by combining two technologies: voice-over-IP (VoIP) and 802.11 wireless. By using its existing TCP/IP networks and spending $4 million for a Cisco Call Manager, the university circumvented its local carrier and reduced monthly service fees from $530,000 to a mere $6,000. Meanwhile, the City of Dallas eliminated circuits altogether. It standardized on an IP network and expects to cut the costs of internal calls by $21 million over the next decade.

Individually, VoIP and 802.11 are hot technologies with promising futures. Now they are gaining attention for their potential as a combined force. Convergence, or the melding of voice calls over an IP network together with wireless 802.11 technology, is becoming increasingly popular. VoIP reduces the need for local carrier origination and termination. Wireless local-area networks (WLANs) offer cheap installation costs and wireless mobility.

Today on Howard's blog, Gerrit Visser points to Beyond Photoplay: An MMS Revolution, by Dan O'Shea in Telephony Online. It comes on sounding a bit paranoid, but the story lays out the opportunities rather nicely: The multimedia messaging service era is just beginning, but it's already created a monster. That monster is mobile blogging (m-blogging or moblogging to some). Right now, it's a pretty small monster, but in the coming years, it has potential to wreak havoc on everything from carriers' marketing plans to their billing systems. The power of its threat is that when groups of users employ their wireless phones to coordinate collective activities — an application that may not have been imagined by the carriers themselves — the industry will have to learn to respond quickly, with new pricing structures, promotional strategies, service reliability guarantees and network management gymnastics. "Mobile blogging can create a lot of new service options," said Eric Anderson, vice president of practice development at Ericsson USA. "It's almost like the network operator is not 100% in control of what hits their network anymore. Blogging users can use the phone in ways we hadn't thought about, allowing those small groups of users to be great influences."

India's Sizzling Economy.

The articles lauding the Indian economy continue. NYTimes writes [via Reuben Abraham]:

Much of India is still mired in poverty, but just over a decade after the Indian economy began shaking off its statist shackles and opening to the outside world, it is booming. The surge is based on strong industry and agriculture, rising Indian and foreign investment and American-style consumer spending by a growing middle class, including the people under age 25 who now make up half the country's population.

After growing just 4.3 percent last year, India's economy, the second fastest growing in the world, after China, is widely expected to grow close to 7 percent this year.

The growth of the past decade has put more money in the pockets of an expanding middle class, 250 million to 300 million strong, and more choices in front of them. Their appetites are helping to fuel demand-led growth for the first time in decades.

India is now the world's fastest growing telecom market, with more than one million new mobile phone subscriptions sold each month. Indians are buying about 10,000 motorcycles a day. Banks are now making $15 billion a year in home loans, with the lowest interest rates in decades helping to spur the spending, building and borrowing. Credit and debit cards are slowly gaining.

The potential for even more market growth is enormous, a fact recognized by multinationals and Indian companies alike. In 2001, according to census figures, only 31.6 percent of India's 192 million households had a television, and only 2.5 percent a car, jeep or van.

Foreign institutional investors have poured nearly $5 billion into the Indian market this year, already more than six times last year's total. The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensitive Index has risen by more than 50 percent since April, hitting a three-year high. Foreign exchange reserves are at a record $90 billion.

This Diwali will be the most optimistic in many years. I think what is happening in India is that the people are now feeling much more confident and positive about tomorrow. The government is running a media campaign called "India Shining" highlighting the achievements.

[E M E R G I C . o r g]