Communications Africa spoke to David OReilly, Sales Director, Africa at FTS to find out more
"All the fibre that is coming into Africa is going to be managed by the national operator."
So says David O'Reilly, Sales Director, Africa at FTS, who offered insights into the prospects for Africa's incumbent wireline operators, with respect to the arrival and growth of broadband connectivity across the continent.
According to O'Reilly, incumbents will still maintain traditional wireline business - through existing copper lines, for instance - but they will innovate in response to infrastructure developments.
"Their money's going to come from all the new services that's coming in with the fibre - which, of course, will be leased to mobile operators to deliver all kinds of new services. The national operator has exclusivity in landline transmission, so I have been pointing out to landline operators the benefits of our solution, which of course can handle all these extra services. I see this as their biggest opportunity for revenue generation for ages."
Services such as IPTV are now amongst the market possibilities in countries such as Senegal. O'Reilly comments, "Senegal has a good telecoms sector which goes from basic to the most advanced telecom services including IPTV, for example. This really highlights the need for a good billing solution which will enable operators to maximise the revenue coming from the many services that fibre will bring."
FTS is ready to support billing for fibre with its Leap Billing Suite, which supports new service offerings with an integrated CRM; an order management feature-set supporting complex order processes; an integrated network management subsystem; and support for advanced real-time features like prepaid cards for wireline customers, or calling cards.
From data to voice, from post to pre, from anonymous to identified
For Africa's mobile operators, however, the most immediate and significant prospects do not yet involve African Internet connectivity, within its borders or with the rest of the world. Today's money is in voice. Tomorrow's money is in data. Furthermore, the money to be made today and tomorrow is from identifiable communicators.
"All the operators - the MTNs, the Oranges, everyone else - they're offering advanced services. But very few Africans are actually taking them. The big money coming to them is still from voice on prepaid cards. Now, we have put our system in Camtel and Tel One. And, for each operator, we have made a converged database for prepaid and postpaid subscribers.
"Why? Until now, prepaid meant anonymous subscribers. But SIM card registration is coming to a lot of places, and is already there in some. Suddenly, what were anonymous subscribers now have a name and a number. Now, prepaid subscribers can benefit from the same packages as postpaid subscribers. So, instead of just selling scratchcards, the operators can offer packages. Operators can give discounts on calls to family and friends. Subscribers
spending more than ten dollars a month can have an extra dollar."
David O'Reilly notes that operators who take such initiative with their prepaid subscribers will keep them. prepaid subscribers who get deals will stay loyal. And subscriber numbers increase for operaters who innovate with their prepaid bases.
"It is an interesting concept. We pushed very hard with Camtel, where we installed a unified database. And Camtel is now targeting prepaid clients."
He adds that, in a way, FTS is not just putting in a billing system. It is also supporting a form of business planning, the introduction of a revisioned business model, in which every owner of a mobile phone connected to an African network can be a valued customer. Moreover, FTS is ready to support billing for fibre in Africa with its Leap Billing Suite.
O'Reilly, "Leap Billing does support billing for the many additional services that fibre will bring. FTS and Leap Billing are indeed fibre ready."
