When One Equals Three …

As the telecommunications industry grows increasingly complex, service
providers face increased competition and pressure to rapidly introduce
profitable new services that can simplify the lives of end users. Within this
environment, IP telephony has captured the attention of service providers world
wide as it enables a wide array of new services while lowering infrastructure
and operating costs. Unified messaging, with its ability to streamline
communications and enhance productivity, stands out as an important revenue
generating opportunity for providers to meet those demands.

Unified messaging is an enhanced service that allows e-mail, fax and voice
mail to travel over, be stored, and acted upon on the Internet, private IP
networks, PSTN or wireless networks. It provides users with access to their
e-mail, fax and voice messages from their preferred client device, such as a PC
or telephone. This new offering allows service providers to deliver a true
communications solution and realize a number of key competitive benefits
including additional revenue opportunity, improved usage patterns among existing
customers and created brand differentiation.

Universal Inbox

Unified messaging provides a central storage place for all
fax, e-mail and voice mail messages, accessible from a local or remote location
using a web browser, any POP3 or IMAP4 compliant messaging platform or a dial-in
voice response system. By providing a single access mailbox, users are able to
save the time required to gather messages from disparate sources, thus realizing
gains in efficiency and productivity. Messages in the unified mailbox can be
accessed and acted upon by the recipient’s medium of choice–including their
desktop PC, hand-held computing device and wireline or wireless phone. Users are
able to receive and respond to messages regardless of their physical location as
long as the user can access either the Internet or PSTN telephone.

Solution Overview

The unified messaging system allows service providers to
migrate from their existing legacy voice mail system to a much more
sophisticated system that can start as voice mail, with increased features and
functionality, and then evolve to a comprehensive packet-based unified messaging
system. The system doesn’t focus on the message; it focuses on the end users
and their need to communicate effectively, regardless of their business or
personal environment. And it does more than simply combine the myriad of voice,
fax and e-mail messages into one universal inbox. With its universal
connectivity capabilities and its ability to bridge any packet or circuit
network, the unified messaging system turns any communications device into a
communications conduit allowing service providers greater revenue opportunities
through additional services, improved usage patterns and additional product
sales opportunities.

With this system, service providers can attract and retain
high usage customers by offering a service to manage all their customers’
communications, anywhere, in any method they choose. The goal of the unified
messaging system is to provide service providers with a system that can utilize
existing POP3, IMAP4, and SMTP compliant e-mail systems. As a result subscribers
can use their existing web browsers and e-mail clients in an unified
environment. The unified messaging system also provides subscribers with a
single access point for controlling messages and initiating communciations.
Subscribers are thus able to retrieve voice mails, e-mails and faxes from any
phone, PC, web browser or personal communications device.

With its multiple interfaces, the unified messaging system
enables customers to access all of their messages with the device of their
choice including:

Phone: Using a phone with a standard DTMF interface,
subscribers can access, listen to and reply to voice mail and e-mail messages.

• E-mail messages are accessed via
  an interface very similar to a standard voice mail interface and are heard
  with the aid of a state-of-the-art text-to-speech engine.

• Users can respond to voice mails
  and e-mails with a voice mail or an e-mail.

• Users can address e-mail messages
  by hitting "reply" or by looking up addresses in their personal
  address book.

• Via the phone, e-mail messages
  can be printed to any designated fax machine.

PC: From their desktop, end users can access all their
messages including e-mail, voice mail and faxes.

• Using any computer with Internet
  access, users can not only access all the messages in their unified
  messaging account, they can retrieve e-mail or fax messages from an
  additional POP3 or IMAP4 compliant message store.

• Voice mail access via an e-mail
  client appears in the subscriber’s mailbox as an e-mail with a WAV
  attachment, which can be accessed and listened to like any WAV file.

• Subscribers can reply to any
  message on the PC with a regular e-mail or an e-mail with a WAV attachment
  for a voice response.

Internet: Using a standard web browser, subscribers can
access all of their messages from a central web server. As a result, users can
access all of their messages from any PC with web access. Users can also
provision their personal address book via the web to facilitate convenient
addressing of messages.

With the unified messaging system, any of the following voice
and document delivery methodologies can be quickly assembled, tested and placed
on-line.

• Unified/Integrated Messaging

• Voice Mail

• Fax Mail

• Interactive Voice Response IVR

• Audiotext

• Outdial Notification

• Fax-on-Demand or Fax Broadcast

The Target Segments

Most vendors have identified entry-level subscribers or first-time users and
the replacement market as major market drivers. Since the volumes will be in the
low-end, most vendors will be gunning for this segment. "India is a
price-sensitive market and we shall try to tap the low-end with products priced
as low as Rs 3,900," said the Mitsubishi India representative, Issac
Waldman. Not everyone is lucky to make it below the Rs 5000 mark though. Says
Alok Bharadwaj, Motorola head of channels in the country, "Under legitimate
pricing, it will not be possible for vendors to push the product pricing below
the Rs 5000 mark." He opines that the only way prices are likely to be
pushed down is when new models hit the marketplace, older models will get pushed
into lower price brackets.

Tech-savvy customers who will essentially lead the replacement market are
also expected to drive the market. Thus, players like Sony will essentially
pitch in the high-end feature driven segment of the market by launching WAP-enabled
phones starting from Rs 18,000. It is a segment in which every player has at
least something to offer whether it is Nokia, Motorola, Philips or Samsung. The
middle level segment in the range of Rs 8-12,000 is also a sizable market and
players here will try to undercut prices to gain marketshare.

The Grey Market

A story on the cellular handset market in India would not be complete without
referring to the grey market. "No vendor can contend with the prices of the
grey market," is the unanimous outcry of handset vendors. The problem is
acute in the country as rarely are handsets bundled by service providers.
Operators here have the issue of revenue share and therefore shy away from
bundling handsets with their service. "Since there is no clarity on the
issue of as to what constitutes seventeen percent of the revenue share,
operators are reluctant to bundle handsets into the service costs," says
Sanjeev Sharma, country manager, Nokia.

Vendor strategies to fight this phenomenon would range from strategic
alliances with service providers to creating awareness about the benefits of a
legal purchase. Adds Sharma, "The grey market will continue to be a threat
as long as the high customs duty exist. Our endeavor here would be to create
awareness amongst users and lobby with the government." To bring in the
benefits of a legitimate purchase, both Nokia and Ericsson have set up dedicated
service centers.

Another factor fueling the grey market in India is that it has become a
dumping ground for European dealers. A lot of second hand instruments find their
way into the Indian market since the replacement market is the major driver in
Europe. The feature-driven European customer gets swayed by new models, with the
outdated models finding its way into the gray market here. Another related issue
is the bundling schemes in Europe. Cellular operators offer handsets at
throwaway prices to woo customers into entering into airtime contracts with
them. Dealers in Europe buy them from service providers and sell them here as
unbundled handsets. If established players have to contend with this
overwhelming phenomenon, new players have an even more daunting task. Sony,
Mitsubishi and Philips are all wary of this problem.

The Drivers

Despite the grey market, vendors see an overwhelming market. According to a
recent study by Salomon Smith Barney, India’s subscriber base is expected to
grow by more than a 1000 percent from the current figure of 3.1 million to 45.9
million by 2005. Of the total subscriber base in the top ten countries in Asia,
India alone will have 11.3 percent of the share by 2005 as against the current
figure of 2.2 percent of the total Asian subscribers. The forecast assumes
significance in light of the fact that currently China, Korea, Taiwan and
Philippines are way ahead, with a subscriber base of 72 million, 26.9 million,
14 million and 4.9 million respectively.

The real addressable population in India is expected to grow from 86.5
million to 205.7 million. This means that by 2005, India will have 160-million
people who will have the potential to possess a mobile but will not possess one.
The penetration level is expected to increase from 0.3 percent to 4.2 percent
during the period.

Meanwhile, the regulatory scenario in the country has also eased up
considerably. The entry of MTNL in the metros and BSNL in the circles and the
finalization of the guidelines for the entry of the fourth cellular operator
have fueled the potential of the market. With the entry of MTNL came the
slashing of airtime and rental rates. This is further expected to spur the
growth. So much so, according to COAI’s figures, that the number of cellular
connections in the country is expected to cross the fixed line connections by
2008.

Balaka Baruah Aggarwal