It’s not new that broadband technology is revitalising the fixed line business as operators look to cash in on the runaway demand for data. What is new is the ways in which service providers are adapting their business models in order to garner as many users as possible, and the alliances they are forming with content and Internet players in order to remain relevant in the data revolution
The annual Broadband Global Summit held in Dubai last month brought together stakeholders excited with the prospect of creating an ecosystem that would hopefully enhance their relevance in the developments to come, while seeing them generate significant additional revenues from the new services being introduced.
Last year Oman was catapulted to the forefront of the region’s telecoms sector through the decision by the sultanate’s regulatory authority to licence and award mobile reseller licences. While Jordan’s regulator preceded its Omani counterpart in terms of creating the first regulatory framework for the introduction of such a class of licensee in the region, the initiative passed to Oman as it became the first market in which agreements between a service operator and licensees were actually ratified
The GSMA is looking for additional providers of international remittance to complement its existing partnership with Western Union. It is hoped this will allow more cross-border transfers through the interconnection of mobile remittance systems between different operators in different countries, and increase the number of ways in which individuals can send or receive money. Last December Western Union teamed up with Safaricom’s hugely successful M-Pesa programme to allow customers in the UK to transfer cash to M-Pesa users in Kenya. Gavin Krugel says that it is imperative that systems become interoperable, and this is a key area the GSMA is promoting.
