Re: WAP Service Provider Business Model

The following possibilities exist:

In all cases, the revenue would be received initially by the Telco, then a % 
subsequently passed onto the service provider.

1) per URL charging - the WAP gateway records URL's accessed by a particular 
subscriber, and charges a set amount for that URL to the subscribers account.  

2) demonstrable traffic - a service provider demonstrates that a particular 
site is receiving a certain amount of traffic via the WAP Gateway.  An estimate 
on connection time can be made, and therefore an estimate can be made of the 
revenue generated for the Telco from which some sort of deal can be made

3) value added service - all telco's are keen to avoid simply being a conduit 
for data.  They are also keen to retain existing subscribers (reduce churn).  
They are also necessarily keen in massaging as much connection time [read: 
packets for GPRS, etc] out of the subscriber as possible.  The service provider 
can make money here by simply selling the service to the Telco.  Telco's are 
not always good at producing WAP Services - why struggle to produce poor 
services when you can buy the best that a free market can produce?

4) Pushed data,  In the absence of WAP 1.2. SMS is used to push data to the 
subscribers 'phone.  A service provider that can generate lots of SMS traffic 
is in a strong position to negotiate a share of such revenue - so lomng as the 
traffic is subscriber requested.  Telco's are (sensibly) reluctant to indulge 
in SMS spaming despite being in a position to charge vast sums for such 
services.  Imagine: Coca Cola pays you local telco's to send a promotional 
short message to every subscriber's phone...


5) others? probably...

(connection time and packets of data can be interchanged in the above - it 
depends on which part of the world you live!)


regards
Chris Harvey


> H
> 
> I am trying to understand how WAP service providers, the people offering
> restaurant information, location of ATM's etc. make any money.
> 
> Can they charge callers, do they get a share of the cost of the mobile phone
> call or do they have to charge the restaurants etc for appearing on their
> directories?
> 
> Thanks in anticipation.
> 
> Gareth
>  
> 
> Gareth Edwards
> 
> 
> Mailto:g.edwards@goldcircle.co.uk
> http://www.strategicbusinessdevelopment.co.uk
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Received on Wednesday, 8 November 2000 05:21:15 UTC