Andrea Bauer

Yahoo Europe has launched a pitch to build up a network of mobile agencies that will help it offer a one-stop shop to advertisers, in an effort to boost ad sales throughout its European operations, reports NMA.co.uk. In the past, Yahoo worked with agencies on an informal basis, but wants a more formal roster that it can turn to to help advertisers develop mobile ads. Yahoo Europe’s director of monetisation of Connected Life Charles Sword said it was “vital” to simplify the process of buying ads. In the UK, Yahoo has search or ad sales deals with the UK’s top operators. It currently handles the mobile ad sales for T-Mobile, Vodafone and Three, with Virgin Media signing Yahoo earlier this month to provide search for the MVNO’s mobile portal.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Mobileeurope.co.uk, Sword gave an optimistic picture of mobile advertising in 2009. He noted that customer behavior has changed, in large part to social networking going mobile, which has led to a “huge upsurge” in the use of Yahoo Mail and Messenger on mobile, which doubled in the first three quarters of 2008. Sword told Mobileeurope.co.uk that the numbers were beginning to sway a lot of agencies who had been “a little sceptical” of mobile advertising, and that Yahoo was getting a greater participation by brands, and more repeat business.

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Though high interantional mobile rates have opened the market to alternative VoIP services like Rebtel and Jajah, there always seems to be some added inconvenience to using a new system.

That said, there are a couple new low-cost international calling services that come pretty close to repicating the traditional phone experience with more features.

TalkPlus and Eqo are two of these companies. While they take similar approaches, they each have significant differences. With both of these services you can set up a call via web interface. The service then makes local calls to you and the person you are calling. You pay for the local calls and the connecting international call. But at least you don’t have to receive a call to make a call.

Eqo uses low-cost international VoIP connections, while TalkPlus uses low-cost international voice routes.

Another difference if that Eqo focuses only on mobile customers, while TalkPlus Global can be used from traditional landline phones as well.

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MVNO Virgin Mobile USA, a JV between Virgin Group and Sprint Nextel has filed for an IPO of up to $100 million in stock, reports BusinessWeek. The company intends to use the funds to repay debt and pay an undisclosed amount to Sprint Nextel, which will be a selling stockholder in the IPO. The stock will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VM. The company has about 4.88 million customers, and made a loss of $36.7 million in 2006.

Link BusinessWeek

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A Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) is an organization that provides a mobile (sometimes called wireless or cellular) service to its customers but does not have an allocation of spectrum. It is important to add that a) the organization may own an allocation of spectrum in one region, which would make it a full blown MNO in that region, but operate as an MVNO in another region where it does not own spectrum, b) that this spectrum can be CDMA, GSM, UMTS, etc. and not just GSM, and c) that this refers to public allocation of spectrum, as recently some companies, including MVNOs like British Telecom, have allocations of mobile spectrum for use in private spaces, similar to hotspots, but are still MVNOs (taken with permission from mobilevirtualnetwork.co.uk). The first commercially successful MVNO was Virgin Mobile UK, launched in the United Kingdom in 1999 and now has over 4 million customers in the UK. Its success was replicated in the US, but ventures in Australia have not been so successful, and failed in Singapore, albeit with a different strategy.

An MVNO's roles and relationship to the Mobile Network Operator (MNO) vary by market, country and the individual relationship of the MNO and MVNO. In general an MVNO is an entity or company that works independently of the operator and can set its own pricing structures, subject to the pricing structure agreed with the MNO. Usually, the MVNO does not own any GSM, CDMA or other core mobile network related infrastructure, such as Mobile Switching Center (MSC) or a radio access network. Some may own their own Home Location Register (HLR), which allows more flexibility and ownership of the MSISDN (mobile number), and the MVNO appears as a roaming partner to other networks abroad, and as a "network" within its own region. However MVNOs do tend to own or run their own Billing and Customer Care solutions, referred to as BSS (Business Support Systems).

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It looks like Amp'd and ESPN Mobile aren't the only MVNOs discovering that their business models may not be getting them where they want to be. An unconfirmed report out of Telecoms Korea is brewing that Helio has managed to sign up 100 subscribers since launching a couple months back. SK Telecom, which teamed up with Earthlink to form Helio, is denying the reports and insisting the true number is in the thousands, but either way they've fallen well short of projections. It looks like we now have an explanation for Helio's shockingly generous gadget trade-in program. SK Telecom also looks to shore up Helio's lineup with as many as five new models by year end, but we have to wonder -- if 100 subs is an accurate count, is there any hope for a turnaround?

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)