Innovative Mobile Services
Play is a brand name of Poland’s mobile operator P4, launched by an alternative fixed line operator, and has quickly become a distinctive player in the Polish market. Play’s different products and services are easy to understand, simple to use and entertaining. Their services reach out to both business and consumer subscribers, attracting the Internet-savvy professional living in cities. Dedicated to delivering a diverse range of alluring and entertaining solutions, the company enables subscribers to take full advantage of all mobile services, including data, news, TV, music, blogs and instant messaging.
The Need: Quick Rollout of Distinctive Affordable Services
Play aimed to quickly roll out a range of affordable services with a focus on innovative branding and go-to-market strategies that create an image attracting Internet-savvy subscribers. It decided to integrate multimedia advertising to build awareness and create a sense of community by introducing social networking to the mobile experience. In this way, Play would position itself as a dynamic operator serving the needs of subscribers who identify with the mobile interactive experience and provides multimedia communications services for this market segment’s lifestyle.
To tackle this objective, Play required a novel business model that encompassed a comprehensive “lifestyle services” approach. In addition, it needed enabling technology that would provide personalized communications offerings based on each subscriber’s unique identity.
Play required these services to be perceived as affordable for their target audience. This meant keeping operating expenses at a cost efficient level. As part of its strategy for high ARPU, the operator decided to erase the lines between pre- and postpaid subscribers.
Finally, Play knew that value-added services (VAS), such as multimedia messaging and the mobile Internet, are essential services for revenue generation within the Internet-savvy subscriber segment, and needed to be robust, enticing and intuitive.
The Challenge: Young, Cool & Relevant
The aggressive goal of creating a brand perceived as young, cool and relevant to people’s lives required the use of all available media channels, such as television, Web, fashionable retail outlets, print advertising and more. All this media outreach aimed at generating interest in a brand that promotes mobile networking among its customers, while meeting the demands for personalized communications.
To keep services affordable and leverage value pricing as a competitive differentiator required Play to use a single, interoperable platform that reduces OPEX and maximizes efficiency. Another strategy in minimizing expenses was to use a single strategic supplier as a partner - a vendor and system integrator who could ensure high quality, high capacity value-added services and an advanced billing solution that can support all service types and enable the convergence of billing all services for all subscribers.
The Solution: Sharing the Total Communications Vision
Play selected Comverse as its single vendor, based on Comverse’s field-proven products, professional services capabilities and for the shared vision of Total Communication for the Converged World. To realize this vision, Play used a Managed Services framework that includes InSight™, an Open Services Environment, including Next-Generation Voicemail and Video Services, multimedia messaging (SMS Center and MMS Center), content management of mobile data via Comverse’s Mobile Internet Gateway (MIG) and the Data Charging and Monitoring Platform (DCMP). Additionally, to support the monetization of these varied services, Play implemented the Comverse Converged Billing Suite, offering customers convenience and control, while reducing operating costs.
Comverse Converged Billing Suite is a complete portfolio of billing and real-time customer management solutions built on the foundation of Comverse Convergence DNA — an unparalleled heritage of market leadership in all dimensions of convergence – prepaid/postpaid, multi-service, network and consolidation. The Comverse DNA features linkage between real-time prepaid functionality, ordering, customer care, self-service and back-office financial systems, which means that the critical core capabilities are pre-integrated out of the box. The Suite allows Play to efficiently manage their entire customer base regardless of payment method via a single unified interface. With the ability to handle any service, any network and any payment type, the Comverse Converged Billing Suite is the key enabler for Play to grow revenues and build loyalty.
Why Comverse: Field-Proven Convergence
Comverse is a field proven solution provider with deployments worldwide. With an exclusive combination of expertise in network-based prepaid systems, IT-based postpaid systems and award-winning self-service capabilities, Comverse offered Play a host of capabilities that would create a single, end-to-end, product-based, production-proven solution supporting all aspects of convergence.
Comverse reduced the number of interfaces in Play’s deployment, thereby reducing
implementation time and risk. Moreover, Comverse Managed Services experts minimize the risks of introducing new technologies and capabilities into the BSS environment and network, by drawing from innovative best practices, which in turn, reduce CAPEX and OPEX.
The Results: A Cost-Effective Combination
Play implemented Comverse’s Total Communication vision, providing subscribers with an expanded and seamless experience to support 24/7 usage patterns. The concept of mobile social networking has been very successful with thousands of individual blogs and hundreds of thousands of uploaded photographs.
Due in part to the managed services framework, Play has been able to quickly launch services and avoid many of the costs that accompany a typical service deployment. Other results that materialized since the launch have been:
- Extensive brand awareness
- Fast registration of subscribers and uptake of value-added services
- ARPU 40% higher than market
- Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) due to interoperability over one unified platform
- Decreased deployment costs by eliminating the need for an external systems integrator
- Reduced implementation risk due to fewer integrations and interfaces
- Robust and scalable technology