Connecting DTW to rivers of related content

I am always pleased when a reader of this blog takes the time to indicate that some of what is shared here has been useful. From time to time, I receive such feedback by email or in the comments box for a given blog entry. It's even more gratifying when somone points me towards a news item that had escaped my notice or suggests a topic which might be explored.

Part of what is pleasing about such communication is that it serves as confirmation of something that I only sensed when I decided to make DevelopingTelecomsWatch a part of my working week. I had come to believe that far too much of what is presented on telecoms industry news portals is focused on what's happening in the world's most developed economies and most mature markets for communications services. Too much for my purposes, that is - because for several years, I had made a living out of developing some knowledge and a network of telecoms sector contacts specifically in emerging markets and developing countries.

I am not alone, of course. It is in emerging markets that we see new licenses, new operations and robust subscriber growth. It is in emerging markets that we see innovative new business models deployed, as service providers and technology vendor realise that industry practices from the entirely different markets of Europe and North America, for example, cannot be easily re-purposed. Further - and this is an especially satisfying part of working in the higher growth markets - it is from developing countries that we so often hear stories of telecoms services making a real impact in the areas of economic development and the alleviation of poverty.

I won't claim that this blog is unique in its remit of discussing telecoms news and views specifically from emerging markets - but I don't know of many other blogs or news portals which share this particular purpose. So, while my list of 'noteworthy blogs' in the right-hand sidebar of this site consists entirely of links to useful sites, none of those links are to places where telecoms sector issues across all emerging markets regions are discussed. That this blog has a loyal readership, however, proves that the theme around which it's built is one which arouses interest around the world.

A challenge for me, then, is identifying new blogs, portals and articles whose interests overlap with my own. I would therefore welcome anything which makes it easier to interconnect with widely distributed communities of fellow digital citizens interested in the telecoms sector in emerging markets. It would be wonderful if this blog could be linked easily with extracts of related content in any format - text, video etc. - without asking readers to navigate away from the site. To do so would be to enrich readers' experience around the theme this blog and other sources of content might have in common. I am excited, therefore, by the potential of a new service named SmallRivers, which is designed to do exactly that.

This new service enables bloggers to attach a portable network to any chunk of content - to an entire blog or to a particular article. Bloggers grab a 'sticker' from www.smallrivers.com and paste the code onto the relevant part of their own site. This enables others to contribute to your content and/or copy your sticker, pasting it into their own related content. Clicking on a SmallRivers sticker will open a sidebar showing everywhere else this same sticker can be found, what content can be found on those pages and what discussions are taking place on these blogs and websites.

SmallRivers is currently a 100% free service and it is my understanding that the developers only propose to charge (possibly) for more advanced functionality. I would like to see this initiative succeed, not least because it offers hope of connecting with like-minded souls and new opportunities for myself. I daresay many other readers would welcome the possibility too.

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Connecting DTW to rivers of related content

DevelopingTelecomsWatch - age notwithstanding, pleased to be a part of YPBLOGS.com

I'd like to think that I approach everything I do with a reasonable degree of professionalism. Whether it's accurate to describe myself as a young professional, though, is open to question. While I do still feel pretty youthful, it seems that almost half of the thrusting young go-getters who visit YPBLOGS.com feel that a dusty old geezer like your humble scribe is far too long in the tooth to be known as a young professional.

YPBLOGS.com is a fast-growing blog aggregator, currently over 14,000+ articles strong. The site's creator describes it as the place for young professionals to find up to the minute news and information that matters. This is achieved by aggregating blogs - 200+ sites are checked automatically every 10 minutes for updated articles, to which links are posted.

On one hand, the blogs added to the site are very diverse in terms of the topics they cover - banking, personal finance, investments, career advice and new media news are among the fields I've seen discussed. On the other hand, the bloggers who have added their sites seem to be less diverse in terms of where in the world they are located. My observation is that, at present, voices from North America are by far the most numerous. Europeans like myself are a rarer breed at YPBLOGS - and bloggers from developing countries and emerging markets worldwide seem to be rarer still.

I'd like to see this rectified, not least because, as this blog often makes clear, innovative technologies, services and business models are being incubated all over the world - inventiveness is certainly not the sole preserve of those of us living in the most developed economies and the most affluent societies. In the telecoms space, it is in developing countries such as Kenya that bleeding-edge mobile financial services solutions are being developed and refined. That country is even home to the 18-year old mobile services entrepreneur who has developed an SMS-based solution which enables car owners to keep track of their vehicles, offering a defence against theft.

YPBLOGS is a useful arena in which to absorb the ideas of younger bloggers, thinkers and innovators. I feel, however, that this community would be even richer were it to be joined by innovative writers from developing countries. I would therefore urge the many readers of DevelopingTelecomsWatch who hail from Africa, Asia and Latin America to add their voices to the conversations aggregated at YPBLOGS.com - and don't be put off if you're over thirty.

Visitors to YPBLOGS.com were asked: What is the age limit for considering a person a "young professional"? The most common response (49% of respondents so far) was 'under 30'. Well, I don't fit in there - but this has not deterred me from taking advantage of the site or from enjoying the interesting material it aggregates.

So I call for an invasion of the over-30s and from developing countries. We can make YPBLOGS even better.

DevelopingTelecomsWatch - age notwithstanding, pleased to be a part of YPBLOGS.com

Mobile consumer power goes militant - but might a third entrant be what is needed to boost mobile take up in Syria?

Mobile operators in Syria can't have been pleased with the recent efforts of activist bloggers in the southwest Asian Arab Republic. The bloggers were urging subscribers to make this month start badly for the country's two cellcos (MTN Syria and SyriaTel) by boycotting services for the duration of June 1st.

A GlobalVoices report on this protest notes that "in an extremely connected world, Syria is still lagging behind". By way of an explanation of this claim, the report states that Internet pentration stands at about 17% with "the vast majority of users... still endur[ing] the screeches of a dial-up modem due to the country's weak broadband infrastructure."

On the wireless side, mobile penetration in the country stands at just 37.86% according to WCIS. In the Middle East region, only Yemen and the Palestinian Territories are less mature mobile markets in terms of penetration. The GlobalVoices article contends that ever since the introduction of mobile services, "the media echoed the customers' discontent with service rates" with "the state of the struggling Syrian telecoms sector.. largely attributed to the US embargo on the country and corruption within the Syrian telecom bodies." The article states that the disgruntled Syrian bloggers have had enough of the current prices and services.

An article from ITP, dated June 2nd (i.e. the day after the protest), provides more details, noting that the protest gained traction after a frustrated mobile user encouraged others to stop using their phones for one day. The protest was apparently adopted by more people, with the message spreading via blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook.

I imagine it will be impossible to find any data on how much of a dent in the two cellcos' profits this will have made, and the ITP article contends that any such dent is unlikely to have been very significant. However, ITP's Roger Field, the author of the piece, wonders whether the incident will encourage the Syrian Government to take a fresh look at its telecommunications policy, which, in Field's words, "is widely viewed as thwarting competition and restricting services."

Field also took the time to speak with Josep Maria Moya of Delta Partners, a management advisory and investment firm specialising in telecoms, media and technology, which operates from offices in the UAE, Bahrain and South Africa. Moya says that mobile users in Syria "were probably frustrated not just with the relatively high cost of calls and per minute billing, but also the restrictive validity of top-up cards." Until recently, reports Roger Field, customers buying the most popular card, worth SYP150 (USD 3.25), had only seven days to use the credit before facing disconnection.

Field contends that this system, which forces mobile users "to spend a minimum of SYP600 per month", makes services too expensive for many Syrians.

Another factor suggested by Josep Maria Moya to account for the country's very low mobile penetration is MTN and Syriatel being compelled to operate under BOT (build operate and transfer) contracts, "with little incentive for the two companies to invest in their networks or build their customer bases when they could be forced to hand over all of their operations, including assets, to the Government once their licences run out."

In Roger Field's article, an unnamed Syrian expat working in the UAE contends that the two operators' disinclination to invest and innovate is such that their services are "exactly the same" and that their charges are also very similar. This Mr X also alleges that there exists "a high level of coordination" between the two cellcos "so they can decide the fee they would like to charge."

Roger Field asserts that as well as having one of the lowest moble penetration rates, "Syria has among the highest mobile tariffs in the region." The suggestion here is of a rather cosy duopoly which is not working to deliver value and meaningful choice for consumers - and this begs the question about whether a third entrant might be able to do well by differentiating its offering on price and range of services, and by taking full advantage of the room for growth created by the low level of market penetration. Who, then, might be looking to muscle in on the action? In the context of the US embargo, any strategic investor would need to hail from a part of the world where the nervousness of American shareholders would not be an issue. Perhaps that part of the world would be Russia. In March, the Middle East and Africa Wireless Analyst service offered by Informa Telecoms & Media suggested that Russian interest in a third license might be quite strong, citing remarks made in November 2008 by Russia's Communications Minister Igor Shchyogolev, who said Syria was considering inviting bids from Russian operators for a mobile concession which could be offered in 2009. The MEAWA piece, authored by a former Informa colleague with whom I had the pleasure of working from time to time, Nasreddine Mana, contends that the two Russian operators that are most eager are Vimpelcom and MTS.

Much as it is appeals to my possibly somewhat British tendency to root for the little guy/underdog, my guess is that the entry of a powerful new player such as a major Russian cellco would be more likely to deliver hard-pressed Syrian consumers with lower prices and better services than the efforts of the bloggers agitating for change this week.

Mobile consumer power goes militant - but might a third entrant be what is needed to boost mobile take up in Syria?