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Counteracting the capacity crunch with active antennas

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Counteracting the capacity crunch with active antennas

Whether you believe the capacity crunch is a real ongoing concern for mobile operators or think it something they are increasingly coming to grips with, there’s no doubt that operational and capex pressures will mean that spectral and network efficiency will remain an ongoing concern for operators. Here, in the latest guest post we have selected, Mark Bole, of Mesaplexx, highlights the role of Active Antenna Systems as a potential part of the operator toolbox.

Counteracting the capacity crunch with active antennas

There are a wide variety of potential solutions to the capacity conundrum including: site densification, small cell deployment, new spectrum acquisition, WiFi offloading and data capping. Each has their own pros and cons – some delivering capacity improvements from a few per cent to over fifty per cent compared to what is being achieved today.

Then of course, there is the emergence of LTE and ultimately LTE-A. The next evolutions of the GSM family of technologies will deliver improved network capacity on new frequency bands, but not enough to appease increasingly impatient mobile subscribers on their own. LTE must be deployed in a way that maximises its potential. When implemented with active antenna systems (AAS), LTE capacity can be improved by a further 65 per cent or more.

AAS can achieve these dramatic improvements through accurate and intelligent beam steering techniques. These differ from a traditional fixed beam approach by targeting capacity to where it is specifically needed in the network. Beam steering in this way improves the quality of the radio channel and increases network efficiency. This has been proved by recent trials in the US where a leading operator has used AAS to increase existing cell capacity by as much as 40 per cent across the network and by 200% at cell edges.   

Implementing AAS will enable operators to not only shape their networks to meet current capacity demands, but also effectively adapt and respond to demand spikes in the future. AAS, for example, can enable separate tilts for uplink and downlink to deliver significant capacity gains. Furthermore, AAS eliminate significant amounts of signal loss by placing the radios at the top of the site mast, removing the need for expensive coaxial cables. AAS also allows operators to dispense with remote radio heads and tower mounted amplifiers, vastly reducing site costs and power consumption, creating cleaner, greener networks. 

So, with all these benefits, why haven’t AAS become the bedrock of operators’ next generation network infrastructure? The truth is that a number of issues have emerged which prevent AAS from performing to their full potential, all linked to one of the technology’s smallest components – the radio filter. 

Current active antenna radio filters are eating up capacity. They are causing too much loss, weakening critical signal strength, and generating excessive heat in the process.  Since multiple radios and filters are required to make the beam steer, reducing heat has been a real challenge.  This extends to delivering multiple technologies on multiple bands as these capabilities again require having multiple radios and filters inside each antenna housing, generating heat that must be dissipated.

The vendor community is rising to the challenge, investing vast sums in R&D to develop a compact, cool running, low loss, high isolation filter that can improve sensitivity and handle much more power. Until such a filter has been developed, AAS will continue to fall short in its attempts to increase network coverage and deliver its 65 per cent capacity gains.

In this highly competitive market, the vendor that is first to market with a multi technology AAS that can deliver its true potential, at the right price point, will reap significant rewards. While the most urgent requirement for capacity is in Western Europe and the US, demand for mobile data services continues to increase at unprecedented levels all around the world. On top of this, the rise of smartphone ownership means that operators have to satisfy higher levels of QoS and service delivery expectations of data-hungry subscribers. With smartphones now used for an increasing number of applications including real-time navigation, videoconferencing, social media updates, gaming and shopping, there is no room for poor quality connectivity.

AAS are not a silver bullet either, but innovations in filter technology can make AAS a real force multiplier for LTE. In addition, AAS are a straightforward way of gaining significant capacity increases from existing sites and infrastructure, and the promise of a 65 per cent capacity improvement is worthy of serious consideration.

 

Ixia adds VoLTE and VoIP test capabilities

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Ixia has introduced a test application to its IxLoad solution to measure voice quality from the radio network through the core network. The application is intended to enable operators to compare voice quality of over-the-top (OTT) service to operator-provided voice services by measuring the mean opinion score (MOS) of voice quality before going live. Additionally, Ixia’s new application tests the functionality, scalability and resiliency of LTE infrastructure components and new IMS networks that support VoLTE-based services.

Ixia’s IxLoad is a unified test solution for testing all aspects of wireless networks, including LTE base stations, core network components and the IMS subsystem. IxLoad supports a broad set of test applications measuring the scalability and capacity of data applications, the quality of rich media services, and the evaluation of security vulnerabilities.

“Mobile VoIP subscribers (Over the Top) growth is predicted to be 386M in 2015, led by Skype and GTalk Mobile, but generating little revenue. Now operators must compete to preserve their $500 billion per year in global business under attack,” said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst at Infonetics Research. “VoLTE is the solution that allows operators to offer a differentiated solution. This important demonstration shows that Ixia can test VoLTE implementations so operators can go to market with confidence.”

“The demand for high-definition voice and other media-rich features is growing with the number of mobile users and devices accessing the Internet. Operators must be sure that their new LTE networks can deliver high quality voice services,” said Joe Zeto, senior manger, market development at Ixia. “Ixia’s new VoLTE test application allows operators to validate their networks under realistic conditions.”

Ixia fact sheet:

  • IxLoad measures voice quality by a mean opinion score (MOS) using E-model and perceptual estimation of speech quality (PESQ) algorithms
  • IxLoad’s high RTP performance supports more than one million concurrent calls with media per chassis
  • IxLoad measures control plane and media latency which can be used to understand call setup latency

 

VoLTE features include:

  • Support of the GSMA IR.92 specification
  • Emulation of SIP endpoints to initiate and receive voice calls and SMS texts over eGTP
  • Emulation of the IMS network (P-CSCF & MGW)
  • AMR and AMR-WB codecs
  • AKAv1 & AKAv2 authentication
  • Default and dedicated bearers

 

Don’t mind the gap? Vodafone results

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Don’t mind the gap? Vodafone results

Vodafone’s data revenue growth continued to match its traffic growth in the last three months of 2011 — puncturing the current industry orthodoxy that data traffic growth is running out of control, threatening profitability as a result.

The operator reported data revenue growth in its third quarter (Oct-December 2011) of 22%, and traffic volume growth of 20%.

CEO Vittorio Colao told Mobile Europe on a results call this morning that the operator had achieved parity between revenue and traffic growth by “proactive management”, especially of “ultra high” data users, mainly through more targetted tariff and traffic management. The slowdown in the growth rate of bandwidth demand on the network was also “a little bit the numbers” he said, meaning that previously high rates of growth were bound to slow a little in any case.

Many operators reported a doubling of data volumes year on year from 2008 to 2010 and many industry projections assume this will continue. The recent slowdown in Vodafone’s data volume growth across the group casts some doubt on those forecasts. It is possible that there will be a second wave of growth, however, as smartphone penetration increases, and LTE networks are rolled out.

In fact in the UK, a market with a combination of high smartphone penetration, high data usage (84% of Voda customers have a data tariff) and a competitive market, Vodafone did see a slight gap between data traffic and service revenue growth. Data revenues grew 13% with traffic growing 20%. But across the group Vodafone reiterated its position of the 2nd quarter, that it had closed the gap between data revenue and traffic growth

However, although data revenues are growing, they are only part of the story. Overall, Vodafone saw service revenues rise by just 1.7% in Europe, and Group revenue reduce by 2.3%. The operator said that Mobile Termination Rate cuts in some markets, as well as declining revenues in Southern European markets, were adversely impacting results.

Excepting Turkey, there was a North/South divide in results, with Germany and the UK seeing slight rises in revenues, and Spain and Italy contributing declines of 8.8% and 4.9% respectively.

“We continue to grow revenues, compensating voice decline with data growth and emerging market growth, as well as continued growth in enterprise,” Colao said. Voice revenues declined 4.7% year on year, but still account for 70% of all revenues.

Although there was a small stir around the “revelation” that Vodafone is removing cash from Greece at the end of every day, Colao emphasised that this has been the case for every operating unit in the group for the past ten years. The company operates a centralised treasury, which is “good and normal practice”, he added.

 

 

 

Alcatel-Lucent launches expanded CEM portfolio

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Alcatel-Lucent launches expanded CEM portfolio

Alcatel-Lucent has announced a major Customer Experience Management (CEM) software launch. Bundling existing BSS and OSS software with a variety of new packages, the company is aiming its Motive Customer Experience Solutions (CXS) portfolio squarely at the growing need within operators to reduce churn and increase revenues by improving all aspects of the customer experience.

Greg Owens, Director, Customer Experience Solutions Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent said, “We are launching a brand new portfolio to help service providers define and execute on their CEM strategies.

“We’ve taken our existing assets and brought them into one unified portfolio in the company. We’ve also recognised that we have had gaps and we’ve filled those with some active investments in new technology.”

CSX is formed of four main elements, Management, Analytics, Optimisation and Consulting. (See left) Each suite contains existing Al-Lu software and a few new elements.

Owens said that new elements included the mobile device management and mobile broadband network packages within the CX Management suite. The CX Analytics suite also has new its elements: with its Customer Behaviour Insights and Perception Insights being based on “new algorithms” developed by Bell Labs.

Me too from Al-Lu?

So is Al-Lu following the herd with its CEM strategy, or is it attempting something different? NSN is already very active in highlighting the strategic importance of its CEM software both for its customers and for its own business, and Ericsson and Huawei are also expected to make CEM launches before or at MWC.

Owens said, “The way we are going to market is very different to the way NSN and Huawei and Ercisson think of [CEM]. We do think we are unique in this space. We think a lot of companies take a narrow perspective: they want to talk about this in the context of the network, and we say it’s about the customer. They want to talk about in the context of mobile, and we also think it’s about what happens at work and home as well.”

Owens added that this is not a market that Al-Lu has come to lately. “CEM is something that we have always been interested in; we have been in this area for the better part of last 12 years,” he said.

Owens added that operators were at an inflexion point in the market because a “sea change of events” happening at the same time hasmeant that “the things they relied on to compete and win no longer work.”

To respond, operators are recognising they need to move from a growth-based “land grab” to a model that focuses on customer attention and retention. And to do that they need software tools that allow them to analyse their network data, their device and application level data and to make sense of that to different business units within the operator, including marketing, CRM, technical and networks units.

The breadth of Al-Lu’s portfolio will be a key strength, Owens said. Although many operators are creating a CEM advocate or chief CEM officer, responsibile for CEM delivery across the business, all operators have different requirements and start from different places, he added.

“Our portfolio allows us to walk into an executive who is charged with making sure CEM strategies filter through the whole organisation and say that we can collaborate with you to build that vision and strategy. We can go to different business teams with nimble and flexible solutions that we can work into their business processes based on that day’s immediate needs.”

So what does Owens make of operators’ attempts to transform their CEM capabilities to date?

“I think they will all tell you that they are in a great position to own the customer experience and that they want to own it, but they will also say they have lots more options to explore and innovations to make to  truly capture the voice of the customer. There’s much more they can do in the context of improving the channels they’ve already established.

“The thing they are struggling with the most is that CEM change requires a broad initiative that impacts every employee in the business, so they have to get around the organisational challenges. But by no means are they sitting back. Our perspective is that this is a crawl, walk, run process and we expect material advances by the end of the year.”

 

 

 

What do 3.5 million BT hotspots mean for mobile?

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What do 3.5 million BT hotspots mean for mobile?

Residential customers dominate WiFi hotspot numbers

BT said today that it now has 3.5 million BT Openzone WiFi hotspots in service across the UK and Ireland – a number it described as forming “one of the biggest WiFi networks in the world”.

Residential and enterprise customers that have signed up for BT’s FON service can access any other FON-enabled hotspot: FON is the service that gives a hotspot a secure private iD as well as a second public iD that allows another user to use the access point.

The vision of millions of hotspots offering widespread secure WiFi access to mobile users is one that has been proposed as either a threat to mobile operators or a welcome “free” backhaul network. BT said it has six million customers who are entitled to access FON hotspots, many of them through wholesale relationships with mobile operators who offer their subscribers Openzone access as part of their tariff packages.

However, a BT spokesperson told me that of those 3.5 million hotspots, 3.3 million are residential FON hotspots. I think this reduces the use case for the “ubiquitous” WiFi network considerably, as users usually require coverage in a range of locations (bars, cafes, shops etc) that does not typically include “in the street outside other people’s houses”. You could say, therefore, that across the UK and Ireland, BT has “only” 200,000 truly public hotspots that are in locations of real use to the majority of users.

My suspicion is that this means that actual “on the move” use of the FON network is pretty low. This is just a hunch, so I asked a BT spokesperson for an insight into how many of its users are accessing FON services in a variety of different locations – in other words, how much use its customers are making of the ability to access service through someone’s else’s WiFi router. BT said it would get back to me on this but pretty much said not to hold my breath.

So, does anyone think BT FON, or similar services in other countires, could yet provide a useful adjunct to cellular services if hotspot discovery and automatic authentication could be taken care of?

Patent Box legislation could change outlook for European telecoms companies

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Patent Box legislation could change outlook for European telecoms companies

“Businesses would be well advised to begin planning now in order to determine whether and how to add Patent Box to their profit-making armoury.”

UK legislation of patent tax structure has implications for European telecoms companies, say Laura Hoyland and Jeremy Morton, of CMS Cameron McKenna LLP.

A final consultation on the UK’s draft ‘Patent Box’ legislation will close on 10th February. Patent Box is the government’s proposed tax relief regime designed to encourage technology innovation and development in the UK,

particularly relevant given the continuing trend to migrate highly mobile intellectual property to minimise tax. After a phasing-in that begins in April 2013 and continues for four years, qualifying patent profits will eventually enjoy a 10% rate of corporation tax. This presents significant opportunities for European telecoms businesses, provided they begin planning well in advance.

In a nutshell, a patent owner or exclusive licensee will be able to apply the reduced rate of tax to income derived from patents, including worldwide profits from sale or licensing of patents, sale of products that embody a patented invention, and damages from patent litigation, provided these relate to at least one patent granted by the UK Intellectual Property Office or the European Patent Office. The government is considering extending this to national patents of other European countries too.

In order to exclude non-practising entities, also known as patent ‘trolls’, the corporate group must have undertaken significant technical development, and if the claiming company did not do the development work itself it must at least manage the patent portfolio.  Profits from services are not included as such, but can benefit via intra-group licensing structures.  Finally, brand-related profits must be stripped out.

Multinational telcos derive huge profits on the back of patent rights, and the land-grab continues with the ongoing disposal of Kodak’s digital imaging patents.  Ericsson’s Chief Intellectual Property Officer also recently announced a new focus on licensing and enforcement of its 27,000 patents. Businesses would be well advised to begin planning now in order to determine whether and how to add Patent Box to their profit-making armoury. Challenges include how to calculate profits from the typical combination of product sales and multi-party cross-licensing: HMRC sees this as a complex area. Attention will also need to be given to structuring joint ventures involving patent development and ownership, as well as dispute settlements and disposals, acquisitions and reorganisations.  Businesses must also understand the anti-avoidance measures and the appropriate transfer pricing strategy.

It seems very encouraging, but is it enough? European patent owners will be able to consider similar preferential regimes in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, France, Hungary and Spain, all generous in their own ways. Luxembourg, for example, extends the relief to worldwide patents and simple economic ownership usually suffices.  Most of these jurisdictions tax relieve a longer list of intellectual property than the UK.

Although the UK proposal makes specific (in some cases relaxed) provision for groups, any multinational business would be wise to consider its current set-up, financial and regulatory constraints, practical and commercial needs and other tax aspects (such as local research and development reliefs) before implementing any move underscored by the UK Patent Box.

Laura Hoyland is an Associate in the Tax team and Jeremy Morton is a partner in the Intellectual Property team, at CMS Cameron McKenna LLP

Mobeam lights up with $1.5 million for LED couponing tech

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Mobeam has added $1.5 million finding to a 4.9 million Series A venture round announced in October 2011. The money comes from new investor DFJ Athena, a Korea-focused venture fund affiliated with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, as well as new funds from existing investor and board chairman Ben DuPont. DFJ Athena’s founder and managing director, Perry Ha, also joins mobeam’s board of directors.

The funding follows the company’s announcement in December that it is partnering with Procter & Gamble to bring a mobile couponing system to market. Mobeam’s technology enables mobile phones to be scanned by point of sale laser scanners.

“As is demonstrated by the partnership between mobeam and the world’s largest consumer packaged goods producer, P&G, coupons are the missing link in the mobile commerce value chain,” said Perry Ha, founder and managing director of DFJ Athena. “With a global retail infrastructure already in place that utilizes a very widely accepted standard for coupon scanning – one dimensional barcodes, or UPC symbols – what is necessary is for the mobile technology to embrace that infrastructure. The most elegant way to do that is through a software solution.  With many handset makers in Korea, DFJ Athena believed investing in mobeam’s software based solution was an obvious choice.”

Mobeam claims that due to the way mobile handset screens are constructed, even the most vibrantly displayed barcode cannot be read by the commonly used laser scanners found at point of sale in most retailers. Mobeam’s claim is that its technology adapts existing mobile technology to already-deployed retail POS infrastructure, opening the door to a wide range of previously impossible mobile commerce programs and services.

Mobeam uses LED technology present on many of handsets to transform barcodes into a beam of light that every laser scanner can read. The diea is that this makes it possible for a phone to present a coupon that can be easily and conveniently scanned and redeemed, without the need for retailers to upgrade their technology. Beyond mobile couponing, mobeam’s technology could enable applications such as mobile ticketing and content services.

A proper biggie in Barcelona

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Consolidation has arrived in Austria, where Hutchison Austria announced it will buy Orange Austria and then sell a bit of it on to Telekom Austria. Is that too many Austria’s?

Once Hutch has got its hands on Orange, Telekom Austria will then pay Hutch EUR 390 million for Orange’s YESSSS! brand and network, including spectrum and its network infrastructure, as well as intellectual property rights to the ONE brand.

Everything needs regulatory approval, but if it goes through we will see the 740,000 subscribers on Orange’s YESSS! brand port over to Telekom Austria, as well as the annual €56 million revenues they generate.

The acquisition will leave 3 Austria holding the rest of the business, for which it is paying a net €900 million. The deal combines the number three and four players, although the group would stay in third place behind mobilkom and T-Mobile Austria.

In this excellent blog, Informa analyst Thomas Wehmeier asks if 3’s role as consolidator, rather than consolidatee, is something we might see repeated elsewhere in Europe where it trails in fourth in a four player market. He points out that its market share in Austria would be significantly more than in any of its other markets, and asks if the deal places its holdings in the likes of the UK and Italy under further pressure. 

Market analysts also said that the deal is a statement of Hutchison’s commitment to the Austrian market. It’s an interesting reversal for 3 to act as the consolidating force, but it may not be one Hutch can afford to repeat in other markets. It also occurred to me, and it’s just a thought, that if there is a buyer waiting off-stage, in the wings, then could it be that Hutch is carrying our some consolidation and cost-cutting, prior to a further sale on to a hidden entity, perhaps with other operating units as part of the deal.

Elsewhere this week there was some deep techie news, actually from last December but only announced now, for whatever reason, that Ericsson had achieved a mid-call handover from an LTE network to a 3G network using a single radio. This is a slightly esoteric point for most people, but essentially the SRVCC (Single Radio Voice Call Continuity) approach is another tool in the box for LTE operators that want to be able to support IP voice services in LTE and also to allow users to “roam” or handover onto 3G networks mid-call. That means of course that a call doesn’t drop if a user strolls out of network, but also that a user can actually benefit from IP voice functionality when they are in LTE coverage. At the moment, voice calls to LTE phones are not carried over the LTE network, as the phone is bumped back to the 2G or 3G network for voice or SMS.

Sticking with voice for the time being, there was a nugget from Swisscom that it has become the latest operator to offer HD Voice over its UMTS network. “Users will not be charged for this service” the operator said. Another indication that HD Voice is becoming a standard “value add” element for operators.

Something that many hope will become standard for operators is RCS-e or RCS-type services. Although there are no further details, it emerged in the Spanish press this week that the Spanish operators’ RCS-e service, due to be launched in the first half of this year, will be called Joyn. If I were them, I’d be busting a gut to have something available, by whatever means possible, by Mobile World Congress, but they may not make it.

Speaking of the MWC behemoth, word reaches us that the event is set for record attendance. Registrations are way up on last year, where 60,000 souls were harvested by the GSMA. We were also told that the GSMA is expecting 12,000 developers to attend, which seems an astonishing percentage of its total attendance. Google has booked more space. All exhibition space is sold out, with 1,400 companies being represented in one way or another across 70,000 square metres.  Nokia has returned. It looks set to be a proper biggie. Let, er, battle commence.

Keith Dyer
Editor
Mobile Europe

Ericsson claims first LTE to WCDMA voice handover

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Ericsson claims first LTE to WCDMA voice handover

Handover of voice call from LTE to WCDMA used Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC)

Ericsson has said that on the 23rd December 2011, it and Qualcomm successfully performed a voice handover based on the 3GPP-standardised functionality Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC).  SRVCC support enables a single radio in the handset to execute a handover of a voice call from an LTE network to a 3G network.

The voice call handover was established on December 23 last year using Ericsson infrastructure and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 3G/LTE multimode processor.

Johan Wibergh, Head of Business Unit Networks, Ericsson, said, “By accomplishing this advanced LTE handover technology together with Qualcomm, we now ensure that operators can meet consumers’ expectations on a high-quality voice over LTE service. Operators will be able to maintain their quality brand for their voice business when they launch voice over LTE.”

“As LTE networks are deployed alongside 3G networks, the ability for multimode 3G/LTE mobile devices to connect to different network technologies will be an important part of providing the best possible mobile voice and data experience to consumers,” said Cristiano Amon, senior vice president of product management, Qualcomm. “Qualcomm is committed to the successful deployment of LTE networks worldwide in conjunction with 3G networks, and the milestone we’ve achieved with Ericsson is another step towards making VoLTE technology a commercial reality.”

SRVCC enables operators to deploy voice over LTE, handing over to the existing GSM and WCDMA installed base as needed, to provide a voice service with global reach to their LTE smartphone users. A Qualcomm statement described it as the next logical step in the 4G LTE voice roadmap following the commercial launch of circuit-switched fallback technology (CSFB).

Ericsson said that the first operators are expected to begin deploying SRVCC during 2012, followed by more global commercial launches in 2013.  A demonstration will be available at Qualcomm’s booth at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 27 – March 1, 2012.

On the personal path to profit

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On the personal path to profit

It’s been a while since we had a guest blog on Mobile Europe. Here’s one that looks at personalisation — a topic that gets paid a lot of attention but often in quite a cursory way. Often there is little in the way of detail, and the idea of delivering personalised customer offers remains just that – an idea. So, how can operators actually deliver personalised service to customers? What are the steps they can take to understand their customers better, and then to act on that? And if they achieve all that, do they then see actual profit for their efforts?

Here, Igor Sarenac, VP, Worldwide Communications, Convergys, (pictured) outlines why he thinks personalisation is key to customer profitability:

Mobile operators must give their customers reasons to voluntarily advocate them, rather than reasons to churn. Operators will begin to achieve these high levels of advocacy when they are able to demonstrate to their customers that they truly understand them. An organisation that can proactively use existing data to deliver a tailored, personalised service to individual customers will succeed in delivering increased revenues through longer-term loyalty.

The secret is in the segmentation
Operators can generate a deeper understanding of their customers by better analysing data to create more effective segment-based strategies. Traditionally operators have collected information like customer feedback, operational data (e.g. call resolution times, self-care usage etc.), and customer profile data (payment histories, product history, profitability etc.).  While many operators are skilled at analysing such information in silos, it is imperative they interconnect the data within these three domains (customer feedback, operational data, and customer profile data) and analyse the combined picture. This includes gathering customer feedback on new service creation, how they are delivered, how they are perceived and ultimately, how they are received.

By combining customer data specific to previous feedback, product usage and ongoing service contacts, mobile operators can group together its most loyal and profitable customers. Such segmentation practices enable operators to build an advocacy and profit profile for each of these highly-valued individuals and target personalised offers to them accordingly. These offers could include device upgrade offers, free concert tickets, free app downloads etc. Mobile operators are increasingly adopting technology that can cost effectively deliver these capabilities to drive more granular segmentation and drive a greater return on customer relationship investments.

Consolidated, comprehensive and consistent
To maximise the benefits of effective segmentation, it is vital that mobile operators consolidate multiple systems and data sources. Live customer agents representing operators can optimise call resolution times and keep care metrics at an acceptable level, if they have instant access to a consolidated view of the customer. This should contain the number of recent interactions the customer has had with the company (and the channel selected), a view of the customer’s product adoption, billing history, offer history (acceptance /rejection rates) and overall sentiment towards the organisation. Agents must be aware, as a minimum, what other channels a customer may have used and why they might have proved unsuccessful in resolving the issue.

Operators should also consider a customer’s social media prowess as part of the segmentation process. This proactively limits bad experiences being shared with thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook friends. When you consider that the average person has 130 friends on Facebook, it is easy to understand how issues can quickly escalate.

This comprehensive customer view ensures that all new offers, designed to increase customer advocacy, are appropriately targeted and more likely to be accepted. For example, a customer calling to complain about service quality on a particular line is unlikely to welcome an offer of additional airtime credits. It is important that operators, through their network of agents, are able to properly anticipate the moods of their customers.

From retail to retention – consistency throughout the lifecycle
Modern point of sale systems now have the potential to provide this same holistic customer profiling functionality. Compelling offers can be prioritised at point of sale according to the customer’s profile and subsequent likelihood of acceptance. This can also be supported by relevant scripting information to enable the sales/support agent to lead a quality customer interaction.

Creating a clear and consistent view of a long-standing existing customer is relatively straight forward. Effectively segmenting new customers is more challenging and usually starts with a considered estimation of their usage behaviour. It is then important for operators to constantly re-evaluate each customer’s usage patterns and align them to their latest product offerings and options. While this constant analysis may impact recurring revenue, it has a profound impact on longer-term customer loyalty by demonstrating a deep understanding of customer needs.

What’s personalisation worth?
Mobile operators will often do anything it takes to prevent customers churning. This has led to some operators giving away free credit or heavily subsidised handset upgrades to low-value customers in return for long-term loyalty.  The reality is that the value of this long-term loyalty rarely exceeds the cost of these incentives.

By working with a large U.S. operator, Convergys managed to reduce the budget for poorly allocated handset subsidies by 20%, resulting in hard savings of millions of dollars. At the same time, the operator also managed to target handset upgrades effectively and retain its high value clients on longer-term contracts. This led to a variety of additional cross-sell opportunities and new sources of revenue.

The same techniques have also delivered powerful results for operators based in emerging markets – especially those with a large number of prepaid users. By closely focusing on segmentation and personalisation, these operators have seen sales and retention increase amongst their so called “pay as you go” users, who are far more impulsive in terms of their propensity to churn.

Operators have a vast range of information at their disposal that enables them to generate a close understanding of their most valued customers. By combining a range of data from multiple systems, these organisations can arm themselves with the relevant knowledge to deliver a tailored and personalised service to these customers. Such techniques are proven to drive customer advocacy and long-term loyalty, which combine to increase revenue and safeguard profitability.

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