(keitai-l) Re: Blip, blip, zap! 3G in Europe & roaming...

From: Michael Turner <leap_at_gol.com>
Date: 10/12/01
Message-ID: <003a01c152fb$c231d840$eb4ed8cb@phobos>
A persistent failure to communicate here: I prefaced my
remarks saying that transcontinental roaming has a clear
business case, and my objections were directed to global
roaming.

In my reply, I'll just say things like

[snipped irrelevant rejoinder.]

....and we'll see how much is left.

Benjamin, replying to my overall case:
> Well, in this case I'm afraid to say you couldn't be more wrong.

Oh, good, I was trying so hard to be as wrong as possible :-)

> Many companies, especially multi-nationals have "joined" the EU
> antitrust case providing evidence etc etc.

First, this is still transcontinental (and not even that if you face the
fact that it's really just something that calls itself Europe -- on a
good day -- and not Eurasia.)

Second: my point wasn't that there would be no case, but rather
that regulators, talking with their old school buddies down the
hall in charge of corporate bailouts (and for that matter, their
old school buddies at the incumbent telcos), might take a pass.

It's not enough to have a case; it's not even enough to have a
good case.

You must also win.  And in any robbing-peter-to-pay-paul
scenario, governments do the popular thing, not necessarily
the thing that plays well with all industry segments.  Intercontinental
roaming just doesn't buy you many votes.

[snipped irrelevant rejoinder, except for:]
> The other major obstacle for CAMEL is that operators have to spend all
that
> money on the technology but it only benefits other networks not
> themselves - they rely on others to deploy in order to benefit. Again,
> something that favours cartelisation and hence has a tariff increasing
> potential.

Yes, what economists call the Free Rider problem.  Now try to
scale it up to global roaming, and you have an even bigger problem.

> The reason why the EU and also the mobile operators are interested in
> the "visited network charges" model (i.e.ZEBRA) is because it is the
> first time that there is a proposed solution that leaves something on
> the table for everyone.

Except that the money has to come out of somebody's pocket,
and unless it drastically reduces operating costs, that pocket is the
consumers'.  I.e., intercontinental roaming will still be expensive for
them.

> Your comment
>
> > ...I ask, "why do you need roaming for this?"
>
> and
>
> > The tourguide service could give the tourist a prepaid non-roaming phone
>
> is actually not so far off because the ZEBRA model does just that. It
> negotiates an instant local account (prepaid for tourists, postpaid via
> credit card for business people) ....

If it's prepaid, how can it be "instant"?  And what in this ZEBRA model
guarantees that it'll be cheap for tourists (which is who we were talking
about)?

> The idea behind this is to enable networks to earn incremental business
> on tourists visiting their country and thereby grow the market....

Growing the market is all well and good, but if growing the market
more slowly is more profitable, why *wouldn't* the telcos (absent
a forcing EU decision) grow it as slowly as would be consistent with
high profit?

> > I think this egg is going to take a while to hatch.  [...]
>
> Major European mobile consortia think different about this these days.

Yes, but again, I was talking intercontinental, not transcontinental.

> > Unfortunately, time-zone differences also hinder the Japanese from
> > communicating even in Japanese with people back home, when they are in
> > North
> > America or Europe.
>
> Most Japanese are early birds. In Europe they can easily reach someone
> in Japan during their morning while it is still late afternoon or
> evening in Japan.

The basic fact is, however, is that the window is significantly narrower
than if the call were transcontinental.  And the reasons for calling
are not the mundane ones ("I'll be late again honey," "let's meet for
lunch", "I have to cancel our meeting for today", "Where's my payment?")
but the more sporadic staying-in-touch ones ("How's mom doing?"
"Wow, the Sphinx is chou kakkoi...")

[snip for above reasons]

> Between Japan and anywhere else in Asia (not to be underestimated) there
> is hardly any issue with time difference at all.

Yes, but as I've commented before, not much love lost.  Europe and
N. America still signficantly outrank as Japanese travel destinations.

> > I'd go with "more people would use it, and appreciate it, but it would
> > become significantly less profitable to the telcos in the process."
>
> My projections, which have been welcomed and confirmed by European
> telcos show a surplus on profitability.

Projections, yes.  Well, I've seen all kinds of projections in 20+ years
in the tech arena, lots of exponential curves, especially.

> > roaming adds little value.  In fact, having the call center in Japan
> > would
> > add costs, one would think.  Call center staff would have to work odd
> > hours;
> > costs are higher here generally.
>
> Most multinationals run Japanese support out of California, Dublin or
> London

Yes in CHEAPER LABOR MARKETS, just as I pointed out.
You seemed to be implying that global roaming would mean that
Japanese tourist service call centers would be better run from
Japan.

[snip for above reasons]

> Recently I saw a feature on BBC World where Indian call centers were
> shown to be very aggressive and active in this market.

Where labor costs are vey low, and people are desperate for white- and pink-
collar jobs.  You're drifting off the point I was trying to make:
intercontinental
global roaming as a slow starter.  An Indian call center is likely to be
switched through a free-dial (or pay-extra) number located in the country or
continent of user interest.

[snip....]

> >   And which would you prefer -- an
> > interpreter living in Japan or one working in the very country you're
> > visiting?
>
> I am not so sure if I could tell the difference, given the puzzling
> efforts of those Indians. :-)

Who represent about 1% of India if they are English speakers, and
1% if they can pass as natives, and besides, what does this have
to do with global roaming?

> > In fact, with more and more telecom companies trying to dig themselves
> > out
> > of trouble, making global romaing cheap doesn't nearly guarantee that
> > the
> > service will also be cheap.  More likely, telcos will all agree that it
> > should remain expensive; and with so few consumers hurt by such a
> > cartelization -- especially since the various workarounds are generally
> > cheaper anyway -- I don't think you'd see strenuous regulatory action
> > against it.
>
> The European telcos think different now.[snip]

Even if they can charge the Japanese (and for that matter the American)
tourists a premium?  I can't see the EU wanting to not make as many
dollars and yen as possible, for as long as possible.  Member countries,
now that's a different story -- there, you're talking voters, at some level
of the political process.

> > I think global roaming is cool, and I think it's going to happen; I
> > just I
> > don't see the pressures being so strong.
>
> In Europe, at least, the pressure is quite tense.

I think you meant "INtense", and I think you're missing some
basic sources of tension -- a qualitatively different application
of force.  Like I tell people who push I18N over L10N --
you just don't have a big constituency that would benefit,
and there are too many software providers who would
actually lose out.

-michael turner
leap@gol.com


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Received on Fri Oct 12 11:59:23 2001