Mobile operators unite to offer Personal IM

GSM operatorts from around the world have agreed to offer fully interoperable instant messaging services here at 3GSM Barcelona. Eight of the world’s largest operators – plus all of India’s GSM networks – have signed up to the Personal IM initiative. The objective is very clear. All the operators will be able to interconnect their IM systems which each other. Plus the sender will be charged for each IM message sent. Unlike SMS/text where messages can take ages to arrive – Personal IM will be instantaneous. The crucial point is that operators will have a choice over the way they decide to implement IM. There are a number of options including OMA SIP/SIMPLE but there’s no necessity to convert their entire backbone networks over to full IP compatibility using IMS, for example. What will obviously happen is that the mobile operators will start to install IM gateways so that they can interwork with each other. The side-effect is that these Personal IM services can also be linked to fixed network based IM systems. One such gateway vendor, Followap, is already trumpeting the fact that its gateway is installed by Vodafone. It refers to IM interworking as Federated Interconnectivity. So it’s becoming increasingly that the mobile operators will simply negotiate agreements to link their Personal IM services with existing players – such as the Beast’s MSN Messenger. In fact, France Telecom has a head start because it has already linked users on its Wanadoo network to those on its Orange network. Indeed, Sanjiv Ahuja, CEO with Orange, revealed that it had already taken part in a Personal IM ‘soft’ launch. This connected users on Orange France with SFR and Bouygues – two other French mobile networks. Orange and Vodafone have also agreed to interlink their existing mobile IM services. The big question is … will the mobile operators get away with charging for IM messages through IM bundles? What happens if a mobile user simply signs into Skype via GPRS and only pays for the data stream? This would circumvent the need to pay both for the data connexion AND for the instant message. Rene Obermann, CEO with T-Mobile is adamant that Personal IM won’t cannibalise revenues from text/SMS. He says that texting is a fire and forget activity whereas instant messaging is all about chatting in real time. The operators argue that mobile phone users are accustomed to paying for their texts. So why wouldn’t they pay for instant messaging too? Let’s see if they are right.

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Mobile network operators from around the world have agreed to offer fully interoperable instant messaging services here at 3GSM Barcelona. Eight of the world’s largest operators – plus all of India’s GSM networks – have signed up to the Personal IM initiative. The objective is very clear. All the operators will be able to interconnect their IM systems which each other. Plus the sender will be charged for each IM message sent. Unlike SMS/text where messages can take ages to arrive – Personal IM will be instantaneous. The crucial point is that operators will have a choice over the way they decide to implement IM. There are a number of options including OMA SIP/SIMPLE but there’s no necessity to convert their entire backbone networks over to full IP compatibility using IMS, for example.What will obviously happen is that the mobile operators will start to install IM gateways so that they can interwork with each other. The side-effect is that these Personal IM services can also be linked to fixed network based IM systems. One such gateway vendor, Followap, is already trumpeting the fact that its gateway is installed by Vodafone. It refers to IM interworking as Federated Interconnectivity. So it’s becoming increasingly that the mobile operators will simply negotiate agreements to link their Personal IM services with existing players – such as the Microsoft’s MSN Messenger. In fact, France Telecom has a head start because it has already linked users on its Wanadoo network to those on its Orange network. Indeed, Sanjiv Ahuja, CEO with Orange, revealed that it had already taken part in a Personal IM ‘soft’ launch.
This connected users on Orange France with SFR and Bouygues – two other French mobile networks. Orange and Vodafone have also agreed to interlink their existing mobile IM services. The big question is … will the mobile operators get away with charging for IM messages through IM bundles? What happens if a mobile user simply signs into Skype via GPRS and only pays for the data stream? This would circumvent the need to pay both for the data connexion AND for the instant message. Rene Obermann, CEO with T-Mobile is adamant that Personal IM won’t cannibalise revenues from text/SMS. He says that texting is a fire and forget activity whereas instant messaging is all about chatting in real time. The operators argue that mobile phone users are accustomed to paying for their texts. So why wouldn’t they pay for instant messaging too? Let’s see if they are right.

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In Site of the Week (by Tony Dennis)

This week                                                                                                      McFly

On behalf of the record label, Universal Music, Graphico New Media has built the official WAP site for the pop band, McFly. The site has a usual mix of ringtones, colour wallpapers, news, dates and biographies of the band members. So far, Graphico New Media has developed WAP sites for seven artists out of Universal's 300 artist Web sites. Given that the URL is quite complicated its lucky that by sending a text message to 'GO MCFLY' to 85080,it will trigger a WAP push message that automatically puts McFly's mobile site into the phone's browser. Graphico claims that not only is it providing paid content for users to personalise their phones with, but also free news, tour dates, and other relevant tips to make fans come back on a regular basis.

http://wap.mcflyofficial.com