Dave Evans, Chief Technology Officer, SurfKitchen

Consumers today use their mobile devices for a greater range of activities and services than ever before and as a result, mobile devices are becoming the hub for many previously distinct services.

"A key component of on-device portals is their ability to target the subscriber rather than the device."

This plethora of services relies on an equally impressive array of functionality, which in turn creates a challenging management environment for operators as they try to meet consumers' dial-tone expectations.

The challenges of delivering data services takes the complexity to a new level and despite advances in device management service provisioning, operators have been left disappointed by subscriber uptake of services delivered through a WAP browser. To combat this, operators have started to re-evaluate their device management strategies and examine the potential of on-device clients for specific services. These clients have the potential to offer a significantly improved user experience, while simplifying device management.

A Different Approach

Leading the development of this new approach is a category of on-device clients called On-Device Portals (ODPs). ODPs enable operators to provide a consistent and branded on-device experience across their broadening portfolio of services. They typically provide on-device catalogues of content for purchase, deep links to WAP portals, customer care functionality and video services. 

A key component of portals is their ability to target the subscriber rather than the device. This personalised service delivery, coupled with the operator's ability to update services or content on a frequent basis makes ODPs an attractive proposition that has already proven successful. By improving user experience, ODPs are increasing customer satisfaction, reducing churn and in turn, driving higher data revenues.

A good example of the dramatic results delivered by ODPs is Orange Group's Orange Downloads application.  Pre-installed on Orange Signature devices, Orange Downloads provides subscribers with an attractive and responsive discovery, preview and purchase experience for digital content. The results speak for themselves - Orange doubled ARPU from downloads, grew new data users by 30% and importantly, increased repeat usage. Results such as these are making ODPs the ‘must have' technology for mobile operators.

At SurfKitchen, we design and implement ODPs for tier-one operators around the world, including Orange, Telefonica and Telstra. While the markets that our customers operate in are very different, the demand for a high level of device coverage, rich user experience, robust update capabilities and strong server infrastructure for subscriber segmentation always seems to be consistent.    

ODPs also add an additional dimension to the management of services to the end user and can be customised based on:

• Device capability - e.g. Java, Symbian, screen size, memory
• Subscriber - tariff, segment, self subscription
• Network capability - 3G, HSDPA etc.
• Service capability

ODPs also offer flexibility in deployment. They can be distributed in two ways: pre-installation during device manufacture or deployed over the air (OTA). By pre-installing the ODP, operators benefit from being able to add key discovery features such as softkeys on the home screen to launch the ODP or an icon at the top level of the phone menu. The second option, OTA, allows operators to update services according to timely events/promotions, but has a drawback as discoverability of the ODP is not as good as the pre-installed version.

Perfect Partners

All this is not to say that existing device management solutions are obsolete. In fact, ODPs are being used to drive core device management tasks. For example, an Asian operator, which as is typical for its market, does not control its handset distribution, launched a football-based ODP delivered OTA. While this operator was looking to foster high usage of the ODP, the main business driver behind the deployment was to encourage subscribers to request GPRS data settings for their device. Interestingly, the operator achieved great success with its ODP solution and found that subscribers used the service, despite having to navigate several menus deep to access it.

In the Future

Looking forward, I see device management solutions and ODPs working in a complementary fashion, with device management creating the baseline for ODPs to work well.  This baseline includes:

• Configuring appropriate data settings, messaging settings, etc.
• Ensuring firmware is up-to-date, potentially updating core capability of the device such as updating the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) in use to provide access to greater functionality
• Configuring the device softkeys and iconography to provide greater discoverability for the ODP solution/application
• Potentially loading the core ODP to the device
• Customer care and network provisioning integration

This baseline builds on the strengths of device management solutions to manage the device. The ODP then manages the interaction between the subscriber and the services building on its strengths in user experience management, integrated to operator's content publishing systems and service designers. Critically, this subscriber/service link continues beyond the device and as the subscriber upgrades to the latest model, they will receive their customised service set on the new device through the ODP.

This could be the perfect combination for operators as they continue their quest for increased data ARPU. Managing devices and services in this way will not only improve the user experience and data take-up but will also lead to a more engaged and satisfied subscriber that is less likely to jump ship when their contract expires.