Content creation could become easier for carriers with i-Mode-type technology

A Canadian company is about to launch an i-Mode-type technology that promises to help wireless data providers make more money, while increasing network traffic for wireless carriers. Calgary-based Wmode has developed a variation of the technology behind Japanese i-Mode, which allows content providers to track revenue and bill for content offered on a subscription basis. Under the current wireless Internet business model, companies have to negotiate agreements with carriers to make their content available to consumers who then pay a fee for accessing the site. With Wmode's technology, content providers are able to charge consumers directly to gain access to the content. The fee will, however, continue to appear on the monthly bill. Company VP marketing and sales Emanuel Bertolin describes the technology as a clearinghouse, a data centre essentially, that enables content providers to more efficiently set up a subscription-based service for wireless Internet content. The North American carrier market is heavily fragmented and for content providers to be able to charge subscription or transaction fees to access the content, they need a method that simplifies that process, he explains. "So you're dealing with a many-to-many relationship and it seemed a natural fit for a clearinghouse model and that's essentially what we're proposing and developing," Bertolin told Report on Wireless. The system, which is used in the company's Calgary facilities, will head into a pilot project with a carrier in the third quarter of this year and then into commercial deployment in the fourth. Content providers aren't the only beneficiaries of the system. Carriers stand to gain as well. "The issue with the carriers today is that they've got to generate increased traffic from the data space," says Dennis Woronuk, Wmode's president and CEO. "That's what it's really all about here." Even carriers that have the so-called "walled garden" approach to Internet content see the company and its technology as a way to bolt onto the side of the network giving "consumers unlimited choice which will automatically generate them airtime minutes," says Woronuk. "And they will obviously take a piece of the pie for handling the financial transactions, too." By giving more revenue-generating control to the content providers, evidence suggests they will develop more content. Woronuk says that i-Mode is the success story of this kind of model. As more content became available to wireless consumers, a mechanism was developed to clear the transaction so that if the consumer wanted to access another site, it was possible. Woronuk contends that as more wireless Internet content becomes available, it will drive up usage and penetration rates, much in the same way that happened in Japan. It will then be the consumer demanding specific and personalized services and content, not the carriers offering access to a limited number of wireless sites. There are currently more than 30,000 wireless sites accessible from i-Mode, up from the less than a hundred when it was launched. Marketing thrust proceeds on two fronts: content and carriers Senior management at the company is currently in discussions with major carriers, buttering them up on the virtues of the i-Mode-like model. Bertolin says that both sides have to determine how the data centre would best fit into the wireless infrastructure. With the varying types of network protocols in Canada, Wmode executives have to work with the carriers' technical staff to identify the areas of contention. The fundamental element of the model depends on a large number of content developers signing on to be partners within the clearinghouse. Bertolin told RoW that he has a couple of people working on that side of the business. "It's difficult to say (how many will be onboard), but we're certainly thinking it will be well into the hundreds, maybe thousands, when we go live," he says.

Content creation could become easier for carriers with i-Mode-type technology

News | February 19, 2001

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