In-Brief: Cincinnati Bell Wireless (CBW) recently became the first U.S. carrier to launch an on-device portal (ODP) from SurfKitchen, a provider whose software has been deployed by mobile operators including Orange Group, Telefonica Moviles España, Telstra, Maxis, Etisalat and ALJAWAL (Saudi Telecom). Eric Schimpf, General Manager of Consumer Wireless for Cincinnati Bell, talks about the decision, the pivotal importance of an ODP platform and the carrier’s future roadmap. Another worthwhile post on CBW strategy comes from Ajit Jaokar via Open Gardens, who examines the merits of a bottom-up/super-local approach to telecoms services.

In case you missed the news in the CTIA shuffle, Cincinnati Bell Wireless (CBW) – a regional carrier that counts some 600,000 mobile subscribers in the Greater Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio areas — has tied up with SurfKitchen to become the ODP provider’s first North American customer.

I saw the news but held out for a briefing/Q&A with Eric Schimpf to connect the dots and confirm what I see is a trend to ODPs gathering serious momentum in the U.S. The wait was worth it – and my thanks to Eric and his team (as well as Barbara Bajkowski from Blanc & Otus Public Relations and Kate Nichols, SurfKitchen Marketing Communications Director) for making this happen.

By way of background: CBW’s new mobile data services portal, MyPhone, now uses SurfKitchen’s client on the handset to bubble up and promote key data services such as content downloads short code programs and email which CBW offers as part of its ZoomTown DSL email platform. The ODP delivers a fully branded user experience incorporating digital content, information services and native handset features on a single, intuitive and visually engaging interface. Eric tells me CBW is initially launching the service as a pre-installed application (as a main menu icon for easy discoverability) on four handset models. Plans are to have the client available on approximately 80 percent of the handsets by 4Q 2008. For the existing base, the client will also be available as an OTA download via a link on the WAP portal. This, he says, will help drive early adoption of the MyPhone experience

The timing for a more aggressive data push is on the mark. CBW already has a solid track record in selling its users on mobile data and data plans, so there is no where to go but up. In 4Q2007, postpaid data ARPU was $6.96 compared to $5.75 in the fourth quarter of 2006. This represented a 21 percent year-over-year increase and accounted for 15 percent of total ARPU.

What is the benefit of an ODP? For Eric it’s a platform that puts a regional carrier like CBW on an even keel with larger mobile operators who have a say in the design and distribution of handsets. CBW doesn’t have that clout, but it doesn’t need it because an ODP approach is far superior and paves the way to a more “uniform and user-friendly” presentation of content and apps. “We don’t command the huge volumes [compared to a major carrier] to customize or command customization of the device….An ODP changes that, giving us a starting point for uniformity within the device and a centralized location for other applications.”

As Eric puts it, the ODP is “step one in a multi-year vision” that embraces choice, openness and mobile advertising.

An excerpt from the Q&A:

Q: Does your thinking go beyond simplifying the menu to perhaps showcasing widgets, for example?

A: You’re absolutely right. We actually started this out [as a strategy] to sell more content – downloadables and consumables. But that is just the leaping [off] point for a much wider platform. Now we can start to explore widgets and opportunities to place other offers and advertising into that space. Having that real estate adds a huge value to us. It begins as a means to circumvent menu navigation problems, but it’s about much more.

Q: Are your plans to promote third-party content, apps and advertising?

A: We’re a regional carrier and we’re a DSL company with a number one spot in our market selling broadband Internet. We also provide cable TV through an acquisition, so we see the ODP as a means to provide a unified element to our portfolio and what we offer in the mobile space.

Our goal is to drive convergence across our products. Ultimately, our goal is to tie our products – our Internet products and other offers – with our handset. With an ODP we can evoke our offer and our portal to come up higher in the menu and command more real estate. We can also use the ODP as an advertising platform to promote the products and services we sell across our assets.

Of course, we have the ability to show external ads [mobile advertising from brands and third-parties]. We haven’t turned that on yet, but we built [the ODP] to do that. We’re [also] working on some global strategies related to advertising across our assets to present a unified view of our capabilities and portfolio.

Q: In your view an ODP brings some order to your offer and allows you to proactively promote your offer, perhaps even package them differently for each customer segment. Is that what you’re saying?

A: That and more. We see this element of our strategy as a means to move us to cohesive device presentation and then the integration of our other services.

We’re starting at discoverability. It’s about making it easy to find and use content and applications. That is the hurdle we must clear and then consumers will likely consume more [data].

Q: Can you walk me through the user experience?

A: The home screen features some key icons. It’s also a prime place to present search and banner ads, which we do. We feature a Yellow Pages’ search engine, which is an entity that we used to own and has local interests.

In the download section you can access our games, graphics, ringtones – all the consumables. From there, we can move to email. And because we’re an ISP and we have our own email service, we featured our email service at the top, although we do allow you to get to other email [services]. The approach gives the user a much easier interface to their device to access email.

Then there is the function called ‘My Account’. It ties you back to your Cincinnati Bell services, where you can get your voice usage, your text usage, and other similar information. Finally, we have some other premium programs that we offer including premium SMS services, mobile applications and other downloads.

Q: Interesting that you not only allow – but promote off-deck content. That flies in the face of what many other mobile operators are doing…

A: We think about it this way: You can embrace the open Internet and benefit from delivering customers the experience they want and will demand. Or you can try to fence it in and ultimately frustrate your customers – and overextend yourself as a carrier if you try and keep up with the services your customers are demanding. With the advance of the mobile Internet there are more applications and services out there than we [as carriers] can keep up with [offering internally].

Our view is: We’re better off being open. It’s about having a more open view of the Internet and allowing more open access to it from the device. Having an ODP is a core part of this open approach because it helps drive our content to their handset and makes it more aware of it from a discoverability perspective. But from there users can go anywhere they want.

Sure, there are other carriers that are just wrenching right now. But I don’t believe anyone – even larger carriers – can afford the investment to maintain a walled garden long-term. At some point, customers are going to over-run them and they’re not going to be able to keep up. They may be large enough now, but even these carriers are going to go the way of AOL and their walled gardens will eventually fade away.

At Cincinnati Bell we’re in a different position. We saw what it would take to build and maintain a walled garden, and we chose not to. We think our competitive advantage is really in allowing the open freedom of the Internet and open access to the Internet from our devices.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Content Discovery, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Search, On-Device Portals, Personalization, Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.