The Key Ingredient for a Blockbuster

Scene 1: You are at the airport and your flight has been delayed. You have
all the time in the world until you get a new flight schedule. Why not catch up
with the latest movie you missed the other day on TV, on your mobile? Sounds
exciting?

Scene 2: You are rushing to the living room after finishing your chores for
the day to watch your favourite saas-bahu TV soap. But your hubby is already on
the edge on the couch, watching the final over of a one-day cricket
match-there's no way he's going to let you anywhere near the TV. How about
watching the latest episode of the gripping drama on your mobile?

'Television on the Move', 'Bonsai TV'—these are some clever headlines you
might have spotted in dailies on mobile TV. Thanks to this technology, now you
won't have to miss your favourite TV show or cricket match. You can download the
content and watch them at leisure in a personal ambience. Here, you won't have
to wait endlessly for data connections to retrieve information-it's instantly
turned on, and you can access your favourite content immediately.

Beyond News Movies

However, mobile TV is much more than watching news and movies on suitably
enabled portable devices. While TV content reaches the mobile customer via the
broadcast network, the primary mobile service provider uses the cellular network
to offer return path from the customer to the a broadcast manager, thus,
converting passive television viewing into a truly interactive experience.

Today, mobile TV is widely accepted as the growth market for telcos, content
providers, and broadcasters worldwide. The global mobile entertainment market
has already become a huge hit in several parts of the world. It is expected to
grow to a $38.12 bn market by 2011, according to reports from Informa.

And the good news is that India has caught up with the technology quite fast.
The mobile subscriber base in India has crossed the 100 mn mark, and the country
will soon be one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world.

Much like the way any Bollywood blockbuster requires the right mix of script,
actors, and technicians, the success of mobile TV lies in the right mix of
wireless operators, content developers, and audio-visual broadcasters. Operators
like BPL Mobile and Reliance Infocomm are coming up with mobile TV offerings,
and mobile phone vendors like Nokia are busy testing the mobile TV technology in
India. In their efforts to capture this lucrative market, these players are
trying to forge partnerships with myriad players in the content value
chain-established content providers like Warner Bros, Walt Disney Company, Mauj,
Indiagames, Soundbuzz (music), and Coruscant Tec, and distributors like Cartoon
Network, National Geographic, BBC Worldwide, ZEE TV, Sun TV, and HBO.

Challenges Aplenty

The viewing experience and services of mobile TV over cellular networks
differ in many ways from traditional TV. Mobile TV over cellular networks allows
viewers to enjoy personalised, interactive TV with content especially adapted to
suit the mobile medium. Other services like video-on-demand (VoD), Podcast
support, and personal video roaming (PVR) are also offered in a total mobile TV
solution along with related e-commerce and electronic service guides (ESG).

Mobile TV is certainly a revolutionary concept, but in order to become a
success, it requires a technically advanced OSS/BSS infrastructure. Any service
delivery platform can come up with all the features/services mentioned above,
but what can set a mobile TV service provider several notches above its
competitors would be an OSS/BSS system that churns revenue well, and has the
ability to charge accurately for the usage of this service.

Finding the right formula for this could be tricky for the operator. On one
hand, there is a whole new set of content players to partner with-where SLAs and
revenue sharing agreements are to be considered. On the other hand, there is a
new set of systems to interface with, like video server, middleware, and digital
rights management (DRM), with functionalities to satiate facilities like VoD,
iTV, broadcast, pay-per-view, and digital video recording.

A Critical Differentiator

The investment of a mobile TV operator has to be very high to reach mobile
entertainment to the end-customer. The big question he faces is: 'How do I
optimize the payback?'

This brings to the forefront, the most strategic and critical component of
his service offering-pricing. The operator will have to take control of the two
most critical aspects: price bands and the right content. Establishing the right
price for the right content to deserving customers is very crucial for the
success of the service. If the operator fails to tread carefully on this ground,
it could backfire since his brand identity, customer trust, and RoI are at
stake. The success of a service provider is also dependent on how he can attract
customers by bringing in a suitable portfolio of content services.

The mobile TV service provider should be able to tap revenue efficiently,
especially when high-value premium content is delivered to customers, because
missing a single usage record could lead to erosion in total revenue.

In order to track such probable leakages, the service provider should
essentially put in place a dynamic billing system that shall ensure optimal
revenue tapping from high-value content services, and shall amicably settle the
content revenue between the service provider and its partners, transparently and
accurately.

The Right Ingredient?

The billing system, in such a case, has to seamlessly interface and
communicate with various elements in service delivery platforms like video
server, middleware, DRM and AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting)
systems, to allow provisioning of on-demand and interactive services to the
end-customer. Authenticated usage records have to be fully captured through a
rule-driven mediation layer and fed to the rating engine. The charges attached
depend on the content, context, time-of-use/download, content provider,
location, QoS or session. Revenue leakage can be effectively plugged if usage is
first authenticated, usage records are then fully piped in and finally, rating
engine completes full-scale charging as per the service provider's business
rules.

The billing system should also be capable of giving a consolidated view of
all the products offered, thus, helping the operator to derive effective and
attractive cross-product bundles and discounts, personalized for specific
customers and customer segments.

On the partner management front, the billing system should be capable of
providing a complete delivery chain view to effectively manage various SLAs and
revenue sharing agreements with each content provider involved. It should also
be able to derive the share of revenue to content providers and account for the
content used by the end-customer through adequate log reports for
reconciliation.

The fast acceptance of mobile TV in India proves that it has all the
ingredients of a blockbuster. Service providers are all set to enjoy the fruits
of a lucrative mobile TV market with an advanced service delivery platform and
an effective billing system. All they need to understand is that the strategic
deployment of a billing system is the key differentiator that would enable them
to make their service a runaway hit.

Pradeep Murthy

The author is head, CME, Apac, SunTec Business Solutions

vadmail@cybermedia.co.in