Tag: Optus

Telstra adds Singapore to its Muru-D startup network

Telstra opens its Muru-D incubator program into Singapore as the company expands its Asian ambitions

Today Aussie incumbent telco Muru-D opening in Singapore.

Muru-D is loosely based on Telefonica’s Wayra incubators that the Spanish telco has set up across Europe and Latin America.

Wayra’s fortunes have been mixed recently with the incubators coming off badly in the company’s restructure last year and it’s interesting that Telstra are copying the model of opening in strategic neighbouring markets.

Complicating matters is Telstra’s Singapore based rival Singtel has its own chain of incubators Singtel Innov8. Singtel’s model is different in that they sponsor incubators, Sydney’s Fishburners for example, rather than set up their own Wayra or Muru-D style operations.

So Telstra’s moving into Singapore could be seen as another move by the Aussie incumbent to take on Singtel on it’s own home ground, something that will be assisted by the recent acquisition of PacNet.

Also notable is the Singaporean government’s support for Telstra’s with Kiren Kumar, Director of Infocomms & Media at the Singapore Economic Development Board, welcoming the launch as enhancing the city’s repuation as “the innovation capital of Asia”.

Telstra’s move is another showing how telcos are trying to move out of being utilities along with Telstra’s need to grow out of the domestic Australian market it now dominates.

For Telstra both moves are well outside the company’s historical expertise, it will be interesting to see how successful they are.

Similar posts:

  • No Related Posts

Are apps killing the text message?

Have we seen the peak of the mobile phone SMS use?

One of the great accidental successes of our times has been the Short Messaging System – or SMS – which was designed as a control function on GSM mobile phones.

In 1993, telcos in Finland started offering SMS as a feature and Nokia began supporting the service on their phones.

Text messaging quickly became a worldwide success as mobile phone users found sending a text message was often more convenient that calling someone.

As the marginal cost for providing SMS is effectively nothing, the feature being built into equipment, the service was a goldmine for mobile phone operators. However the tide might be turning as apps take over.

This was emphasised in a submission by telco Optus to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on some regulatory changes governing mobile connection costs where the provider raised the point that the rate of SMS growth is slowing.

First, while SMS usage has grown significantly since 2009, the rate of this growth has slowed significantly over the last year few years. This slow-down is largely due to greatercompetition from IP-based over-the-top (OTT) messaging services.
Over The Top services is telco jargon for apps that replicate phone functions, like Skype or Viber and these are expected to start taking a chunk from telco revenues.
While Optus’ submission is somewhat self serving as they are using the claim as an argument to get more protection, it may well be that telcos are seeing the age of what was the golden goose of SMS coming to an end.
If so, it will be the death of a technology which, for a short time was a very lucrative one.

Similar posts:

Eating the Old Man’s lunch

Optus’ purchase of Eatability is ironic given Fairfax’s and Telstra’s failure with Citysearch.

Optus today announced the purchase of restaurant review site Eatability for $6 million.

Eatability is one of the services that’s destroyed the business models of both the phone directory business and that of newspapers.

Thirty years ago the Sydney Morning Herald launched its Good Living section and it became the way people went found where the good places were to eat.

Diners wanting to make a reservation at the hip eating places being reviewed in Good Living picked up the phone book.

Now they do neither, they go to web sites like Eatabilty or Yelp where they get reviews, contact details and everything else they need about the venue.

Which killed the advertising revenues that newspapers and phone directories depended upon.

The sad thing is both the newspapers and Yellow Pages could have owned this space. Citysearch was setup by Fairfax to address the online market and it was sold to Telstra when the newspaper chain struggled to make it work.

Citysearch today languishes neglected and nearly forgotten under the Sensis umbrella. Optus now owning Citysearch’s biggest local competitor which must bring a hollow laugh to those involved in the early days of Fairfax’s digital experiment.

Whether Eatability thrives under Optus remains to be seen, but it illustrates just how incumbent strengths like telephone directories are being eroded in the online world.

Old men have to start moving quickly if they don’t want upstarts eating their lunch.

Similar posts: