There’s nothing new about mobile phone subscribers being able to pay for goods and services from their mobile phones.  But the mobile payment experience is often far from ideal – representing a barrier to doing business with a merchant. 

But with Direct Operator Billing things are about to change…meaning that operators can rapidly build new merchant relationships and high volume, secure mCommerce channels.

The mobile payment opportunity is great.  Smart Mobile devices are becoming pervasive – across all demographic groups.  Moreover, in many developing economies mobile payment represents a significant opportunity to create new platforms for secure monetary transactions.

At SLA Mobile, we believe the mobile payment potential is still largely untapped – because we believe that the future of mobile payment embraces the most obvious means of exchange with a secure and trusted party – the mobile phone service provider.  And we’re working with operators to allow them to build richer, revenue-generating opportunities with their own customers.

Direct Operator Billing – for goods and services via the subscriber’s own mobile bill – is still in its infancy.  But many believe (and we agree with them) it’s an idea whose time has come.

Until recently the only services consumed by subscribers that were billed directly to the mobile phone bill were ring tones or wallpapers – with payment via Premium SMS.  Direct Operator Billing, however, allows a myriad of goods and services to be billed directly to the mobile subscriber’s bill.  With the emergence of near-field communications functionality and QR code readers on mobile devices traditional high street goods and services can also be purchased in this way – safely, securely and with vastly better customer, operator and merchant related business processes.

This is part of a briefing paper we have prepared on Direct Operator Billing.  To get a copy of the full paper, click here.  

From the living room to the boardroom, cutting-edge technology is reshaping almost every aspect of modern life. Mobile internet technology is making the world faster and better connected meaning the way we collaborate, shares stories and do business is undergoing a very rapid revolution. This year saw a tipping point in the number of people accessing the internet on the move rather than at their desks.

This is a fundament shift in how we interact with the world around us from keeping in touch, to buying pizza or sharing documents. The four companies driving the overall technology revolution are arguably the world’s biggest brands Google, Facebook, Amazon and of course Apple – which recently became the most valuable company in the US. Note that I’d don’t list Micrsosoft! And in five years time don’t be surprised of two on the list are actually Chinese companies.

It’s no surprise that all four are competing for your wallets but central to their strategies are the devices we keep next to them, our mobile phones. In the last two weeks Google actually bought Motorola’s mobile phone division. Put that in context – Motorola invented the world’s first mobile phone. Across the globe, customers are hungry for the next wave of clever gadgets, apps and services and that demand has given the big firms pole position in the international mobile market.

Mobile Network operators, formerly the powerhouse in the sector, face a genuine threat to their role. In fact, some industry analysts claim they could become extinct or reduced to a utility provider role within five years as companies like Apple and Google steal a march on their customer relationships.

The ongoing tussle is rapidly up scaling technologies and services for customers and giving Northern Ireland firms an opportunity to play their part on the global stage.

At SLA Mobile, for example, our strategy is global in focus but local in implementation. Our offices in Belfast and Kuala Lumpur have helped us clinch contracts with network operators – from the USA to Australia, South Africa and China – as they look to fight back by unlocking the potential of their network assets and identify innovative revenue streams

We aren’t developing applications ourselves, but instead offer a platform, Alacrity, that allows telecoms operators, such as Vodafone, to easily link up with application developers in any country. This means organisations can reach and bill any end user on any network without having to enter into multiple arrangements with network operators in each jurisdiction they work in.

It’s a simple concept, but with big potential. Ultimately it means that services and applications can hit the market faster, development costs are massively reduced and combine handset, mobile and social networking data into clever new ideas.

Working across multiple countries and time zones, new technologies have also been critical to help us reduce costs and keep our projects on track. Cloud computing has been making waves in recent months, but it’s a concept that were quick to adopt over the last two years.

With information stored virtually in ‘military specification’ servers and accessed through mobile and web-based applications, such as Google Docs or Microsoft 365, the approach allows our teams in Belfast and KL to simultaneously access and collaborate on documents improving our business efficiency and saving our clients money.

And for any NI director reading this article sit up now. Ask your IT Manager about Cloud Computing and its ability to save you 50-80% on your IT costs. There is a revolution going on with Cloud.

Just a few years ago it would have seemed inconceivable that projects would be stored remotely rather than on a local server. Today it’s the other way around. Cloud computing makes it easier to establish connections between sites and speed up project delivery.

The world is definitely becoming a smaller place and we’re all seeing farther as a result.

At the recent “Managing Devices, Applications and Services” conference organised by the Device Management Forum in Maidenhead, U.K., a number of discussions and presentations addressed a wide range of aspects within M2M and the Internet of Things – such as standardisation, information provenance, consumer applications, e/m health and drivers behind M2M and IoT.

Adding a fresh and innovative message to the field, Philip Stanfield, Director of Vodafone Business at SLA Mobile, captured the attention of the international audience present with the “Smart Enablers: Quicker route to market” presentation. This presentation outlined three simple messages:

- there is an opportunity for all when operators unlock their network assets
- there is an opportunity to monetise Direct Operator Billing now
- this can be done at 2.0 speeds and not old world telco pace

These opportunities were here and now, and with three simple yet effective illustrations and a detailed case study from Vodafone Ireland, SLA Mobile’s Alacrity solution demonstrated the benefits and innovation that could be achieved when looking to enrich M2M and enterprise applications.

Attended by partners of the wider M2M ecosystem, including such international companies as Ericsson IPX, Samsung, Numerex, Vodafone and KPN, the growth and development of M2M is certainly set to continue its impact on consumer and enterprise agendas in the coming years.