by John_Boden
17. September 2009 14:55
One of the things I love about working in the telecom industry is that we work to enable one of the most basic building blocks of society—communication. I have had the privilege over my career in this industry to travel and talk to people from around the world about how such a fundamental aspect of human society varies in subtle ways around the globe and even by demographic within a geography. Though subtle at their roots, those differences eventually manifest themselves in fairly fundamental ways when it comes to how people use messaging products. Whole regions of the globe regard voice mail as a basic part of their phone service, getting down right annoyed when a mailbox fills up and they can't leave a message, while others only want to connect directly with the person they called no matter how much effort they have to exert to avoid leaving a message. Some groups talk for hours while others communicate in short text bursts. The differing ways to accomplish the same basic things are fascinating.
Every now and then, though, it is good to be reminded that despite these differences our fundamental needs are very similar. That happened recently during a customer meeting in the U.S. We were talking about a virtual phone service that we have been referring to as Virtual Subscriber Service which was conceived in Africa as a way to bring phone service to those who can't afford phones. Finding ways to communicate becomes especially important when family members have had to leave the village to find work. The same type of migration for work exists in the U.S. but implementing the service is a bit trickier since many of those folks' families cross carrier and international boundaries. Right after that discussion we were talking about how much churn was happening in their prepaid subscriber base with the economic downturn. I was interested because although a bad economy drives more people to prepaid, some existing prepaid subscribers would have to drop their service. This happened to a painter I know. He had to suspend his prepaid service when painting work with builders dried up overnight. Then it hit us. My friend, the painter, needed exactly the same service as the migrant workers in Africa. He couldn't risk paying for full mobile service until he re-built his business, but he certainly would have paid a lesser fee to keep his number active, even if it meant dialing in to pick up messages until he could re-establish his full service. When the time came, there would be no question of him shopping around since he had never really stopped having service. After the meeting I asked my painter friend what he thought of the idea. He loved it. It is a small world after all.