The traditional business models of Mobile Operators are changing fast and Hutchinson Whampoa seems to be leading the charge, with an announcement earlier this week that they are launching a Skype phone in all of their key markets, before Christmas. 

Historically these companies have benefited enormously from disruptive technologies but the introduction of Voice over IP services such as Skype leaves them in a real quandary.  On the one hand they have (and are) investing billions in evolving their networks to support mobile data, while on the other they are having to introduce flat-rate data plans to stave off the competition – When upwards of seventy five percent of their revenue still come from voice services, it’s easy to see why moving them onto a flat rate tariff using VOIP, will have a significant “disruptive” business impact.

Many of the Mobile Operators are either watching and waiting, or else resisting change by barring VOIP access on their networks. It seems inevitable that they will have to make the change sooner rather than later however and Hutchinson’s announcement this week only serves to reinforce this reality.

While Mobile VOIP is probably the most disruptive technology in the marketplace today Mobile WiMax runs a close second. Offering the potential for more “open” end-user devices and applications it can only serve to add fuel to the fire of mobile VOIP impacts – Creating even more competition while harnessing VOIP to accelerate the commoditization of voice services.

Both Mobile VOIP and WiMax make it increasingly difficult for Mobile Operators to develop long-term planning and as a consequence they must sharpen their tactical Sales and Marketing effort. The result of this is that Mobile Network Design and Planning becomes increasingly Marketing driven and far more real-time in nature. 

This makes it vitally important for Mobile Operators to strengthen the interface between their Marketing and Network Groups. One possible way of doing this is to leverage smart tools to streamline the process between them, so that Network Design is kept in lock-step with Marketing’s real-time needs.