MomoLondon and Voice

Yesterday I was part of the Panel talking about Voice2.0 at the monthly Momo event in London.

Marcus Taylor demonstrated a product that he is developing for TfL for 2012 that looks interesting, somewhat like some of the demonstrations of the potential for Wildfire.

Simon Crowford then spoke of the developments at Spinvox, I may soon be able to dictate this blog on the basis of what I heard.

I then gave an overview of why Voice is important to mobile.  Latest numbers show that it is not just the emerging markets that mobile holds over half of the total of voice calls made. I spoke about the fact that not a single Network has a Board Member for Voice despite the fact that 85% of revenues come from voice.  Manage to talk about the lack of innovation in Voice and that 70% of calls are made in building which places it at risk from the fixed networks.

Christian Lindholm once again gave an excellent overview of Voice2.0 in which he highlighted the 3 Skype handset as the best phone in the world because it does Presence.  He spoke of the fact that you can see who is available as well as the fact that it is not only a VoIP service and so quality is better than the free services from the likes of Fring.

Questions were interesting but not sure that the early adopters who are members of Momo understand that Voice is the future of what is basically a communication device.  

Sunday Times looks into mobile banking

Yesterday's Sunday Times had a good analysis about mobile banking. Just a shame that the vision of Orange has not been executed by the New Owners!

The final sections where they talk about Mobile Banking in the UK should be something that is read and understood by the GSMA before they start the push into Remittances. Once again the focus needs to be on micro payments rather than competing with Western Union for those Operators in Europe. My Polish builder returns home every 6-8 weeks on a cheap flight carrying cash, he trusts no one when it comes to his money.

However the ability to replace small value transactions with a simple test message will cut the ques at Starbucks and as the FT's Undercover Economist shows the use of gift cards is not something that everyone approves of. If you want to give a small present why not send it as a top up someones phone credit rather than a crisp new bank note?

The problem is that with five network operators we have too many billing systems to connect if we are to make m-money work. We cannot allow a third party to facilitate cross network payments as they would expect to be paid a commission. Perhaps we need to move towards structural separation and thus billing just becomes a service layer?