Omantel Master Presentation Template

1
ARWP 4th Annual Meeting on Private Sector
Issues Infrastructure Services Investment Tunis
Meeting 1-2 December 2004
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AGENDA

• Introduction
• Old Action Items
• Infrastructure Connectivity between Arab
  Countries
• Call Centre Business in Arab Countries
• Voice Over IP Policies
• Initiatives for increasing Arabic Content
• Investment

3
Old Action points review

• Construct a web site for ITU-Arab private sector
  
• Mr. Atef advised that the site is already
  developed
• He is to forward the web site to the groups in
  order to get their feedback.
•  Encourage business opportunities for Arab
  private sector communication companies
• We agreed that this could be achieved through
  gathering new tenders electronic information
  publish it in the web site for ITU-Arab private
  sector.
• The gathering of the tenders information through
  a questionnaire to all Arab telecoms is to be
  coordinated by ITU.
•  

4
Arab World Connectivity

• The objective of this initiative is to insure the
  Arab countries infrastructure capability of
  having the Inter-Arab countries interconnect
  traffic for voice data routed within the Arab
  countries infrastructure.

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Arab World Connectivity
Means of Connectivity

• Satellite (Limited BW, Expensive, Transmission
  Delay)
• Fiber Optic Submarine (No BW Constraint, Cost
  Effective, Global/Regional Connectivity)
• Fiber Optic Terrestrial (No BW Constraint, Cost
  Effective, Limited Participants and Coverage)
• Fiber Over Power Grid (Limited to SCADA use only,
  Study needed to explore other uses, Cost
  Effective)

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Arab World Connectivity
Fiber Optic (Submarine)
Source ITU Arab Book 2004
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Arab World Connectivity
Fiber Optic (Submarine)
Source ITU Arab Book 2004
8
Arab World Connectivity
Fiber Optic (Terrestrial)
Source ITU Arab Book 2004
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Arab World Connectivity
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Arab World Connectivity
SEA-ME_WE 2
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Arab World Connectivity
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Oman Connectivity

• PLANNED CAPACITY
• Omantel is in the process of acquiring
  capacity in the FALCON project of FLAG expected
  to be operational by the end of 2005.
• It will provide an additional capacity
  of 16 STM- 1s across the globe

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Arab World Connectivity
Recommendations

• Arab Region is underserved and needs
  additional capacity of fiber optic network
• The total requirement of each member country
  be compiled (15 year projection) and
  conceptual/definitive plans developed
• Expertise from ITU be sought
• Source of funds needed for implementation be
  explored and arranged
• Use of Fiber over the Power Grid be studied
  and feasibility prepared.

Source ITU Arab Book 2004
14
Call Center Business

• The need for Outsourcing
• As banking, information technology, and
  telecommunication businesses growing and
  competing to provide more innovative services in
  the middle east, their ability to cope with their
  diverse activities is reducing.
• Outsourcing their non core activities to contact
  centers / BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) is a
  business opportunity for the region to achieve
  organizational efficiency and promote the
  Telecommunication and IT sectors.

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Call Center Business

• Outsourcing benefits to Contact Center/BPO
• No capital investment for infrastructure
  required.
• Expertise and experience with other clients in
  similar business lines.
• Reduced human resource cost.
• Flexibility to scale up and down business
  requirements.
• Can easily exit from relationship if not
  satisfied and move to another.
• Clear relationship with BPO based on quality and
  performance.
• Customized solutions ensure data security and
  safety.
• Improved productivity by focusing on core
  business.

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Disadvantages of not Outsourcing

• Build expertise from scratch by hiring or
  redeploying resources.
• Lower competitive edge by have a higher unit
  costs.
• High capital investment and human resource cost
  as payback usually from 3 to 5 years.
• Unable to benefit from economies of scale.
• Higher cost with lower quality.
• If not satisfied with your in sourced service,
  difficult exit without incurring high costs.

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Business Projections for AsiaContact Center Seats
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Model for Arabian Regional countries to
emulateBPO HR revenue forecast (Asia Pacific)
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Leading Contact Centers/BPOs
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Oman experience (Infoline)

• A shared vision between Omantel and private
  sector to provide world class outsourced contact
  center solutions.
• Omantel/PEIE/BCT partnership provides contact
  center solutions using Cisco Hosted IPCC
  technology.
• Based in the Knowledge Oasis Muscat, Sultanate of
  Oman, with 300 seating capacity.
• Provides state of the art technology with well
  trained bilingual, Arabic English speaking,
  workforce

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Oman experience (Infoline)

• Gulf Air is the first customer.
• Gulf Air started with 50 seating capacity
  handling their reservation calls from Oman only
  in year 2003.
• Today they have 100 seat handling calls from GCC
  countries, India, UK, and Australia .

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Summary

• As the region is emerging more and more into the
  global economy associated with higher operating
  cost, it is time to benefit from the economy of
  scales to outsource non core activities by
  promoting initiatives of BPOs.
• BPO activities therefore will further benefit
  communication and IT sectors.

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• Voice over IP

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Global VOIP Market Development

• USA
• The FCC has taken a competitive, market based
  approach to the Internet Services.
• While the basic telephone services are regulated,
  data services are not regulated in the United
  States.
• This has resulted in the phenomenal growth of
  Internet services including Voice over Internet
  (VoN).
• The companies that offer data services do not pay
  any access charge to subsidize the local
  telephone companies. They also do not contribute
  to the universal service fund.
• Also IP telephony provides alternate calling
  options in markets that otherwise do not have any
  competition.
• European Union
• The Regulatory framework in the European Union
  aims to be technology neutral and does not
  distinguish between the different technologies
  that communications providers use to deliver
  their services.
• In UK, The Regulatory Authority Office of
  Communications (Ofcom) has recently published its
  directives on VOIP.
• The Communications Act establishes the new
  general authorization regime, which is a
  framework under which licenses are abolished and
  prior authorization or permission is not required
  from Ofcom before companies are able to provide
  electronic communications networks and services.
• VoIP providers are required to conform to the
  General conditions of Entitlement specified by
  Ofcom.

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Global VOIP Market Development

• ITU
• ITU-T Study Group 2 is paying special
  attention to the Quality of Service (QOS)
  standards for VOIP and recommendations of the
  ITU are available on this subject.
• Voice Quality and QOS are critical for the
  success of any VOIP service.
• ITU had initially produced the H.323 series of
  recommendations which have been widely accepted
  in the field of IP Telephony.
• ITU jointly with IETF has produced the
  H.248/Megaco protocol for controlling the media
  gateways that can pass voice, video, facsimile,
  and data traffic between PSTN and IP based
  networks. ITU-T Study Group 2 (SG2) is currently
  studying the options whereby users in IP
  address-based networks can be accessed from /to
  PSTN users.

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Global VOIP Market Development

• Asian Market
• China
• VoIP was opened up in China in the year 2000 and
  has become the fastest growing service in Chinas
  entire telecom industry, with some analysts
  forecasting it will capture up to 30 of Chinas
  long-distance market shortly. A year after the
  VoIP experiment started, the authority designated
  VOIP as a normal service.
• SINGAPORE
• In Singapore, VOIP was liberalized in the year
  2000 and the VoIP market is growing very fast.
  The savings in the IDD rates for consumers are
  substantial.
• 20 of all outgoing traffic in Singapore is VoIP
  compared to 1 to 2 percent in other countries.
• Singtel v019 service is offered using IP
  Technology and allows very cheap calls to more
  than 240 international destinations.
• The calls could be made from any phone line,
  Phone Net, ISDN and Mobile service.
• INDIA
• In India, the Telecom Regulatory body opened up
  Internet Telephony in the year 2002. As per this
  notification the scope of the service was for
• PC-to PC
• PC to Phone
• IP based H.323 /SIP Terminals employing
  addressing scheme of IANA
• Tariff
• Toll quality voice - same as that of normal
  telephone service
• Below toll quality - lower.

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Global VOIP Market Development

• ARAB/ GCC Countries
• At present, VoIP is not legal in most of the
  regional countries except in the case of Kuwait
  .
• Regional countries are taking steps to gear
  themselves up to profit from the impending
  deregulation in Voice Over IP market.
• It has not been very effective to control the
  illegal provisions by third party providers and
  therefore the incumbent telecom providers are
  preparing themselves to provide these services.

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IP Telephony in Oman

• Omantel was awarded a contract to implement IDC
  services at Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM) in
  September 2003. KOM is a Technology Park located
  in Muscat. IP telephony is one of many services
  being offered at KOM.
• IP telephony project at KOM was a success story
  for Omantel. It incorporated most of PSTN
  functionality including extension Mobility.
• One of the major customers (Gulf Air) at KOM Call
  Center has all of its ticket reservations made on
  VOIP.
• The traffic for the Gulf Air comes to Oman from
  major countries such as UK, Singapore and
  Bahrain.

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VOIP- Technology, Opportunity, Challenge

• Technology Flexibility in services
• Opportunity Combining voice and data on the same
  network, VoIP and other cost-cutting measures can
  help give the Arab region a competitive advantage
  in providing services at a reasonable cost.
• Challenge Regulations

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Recommendations

• Various researchers show
• Significant Growth of VOIP in Europe, Middle East
  and Africa (EMEA).
• Wholesale VOIP traffic exceeding 50 Billion
  minutes by 2009.
• The retail Voice traffic in excess of 1,550
  billion minutes.

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Recommendation

• In light of market potential, a recommendation
  can be made for the creation of an independent
  focused group in the Arab region to study and
  leverage upon technologies such as VOIP.
• It is recommended that the group work with a
  consultant and an ITU Study Group to look at the
  technology, market opportunities, regulatory
  issues and governmental concerns.

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• Initiatives for increasing Arabic Content

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Arabic Initiatives for increasing Arabic Content

• ITU Arab Region Internet Telecom Summit (OMAN)
  held in 2001, the need for increased usage and
  training was stressed for promotion of Arabic
  Content.
• Expert Group Meeting on Promotion of Digital
  Arabic content (DAC) was hosted at Beirut during
  2003, under auspices of World Summit on
  Information Society (WSIS) endorsed by UN and
  organized by ITU
• Within the above framework, The World Summit
  Award (WSA) initiated to help move towards a
  common global vision on the Information Society. 
• Number of Regional content providers tied up with
  Mobile/Internet Service Providers to deliver
  Arabic content.

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Telecom Services For Delivery of Content

• Internet / Broadband Technologies
• e-learning, e-government, e-health, e-business,
  e-entertainment
• In the long term, planning for streaming videos
  using Set top Box
• Telephone Services
• IVR Audiotext Service
• Mobile Services
• Widespread launch of GPRS and MMS and more
  recently 3G
• Speed of introduction of Arabic content help
  adoption of MMS
• ARABIC offerings
• News, Jokes, Sports, Entertainment using SMS
  Content
• SMS Infotainment Service to deliver Arabic
  Content
• WAP Push Magazine
• Mobile Portal

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Strategies for Content Provision

• Content Provision Value Chain Positions
  application provider can adopt

Content Provider
Application Developer
Aggregator
Application Provider
Portal Operators
Develops application/ content
Aggregates Application Content for Portals
Branding
Aggregates Content From many Providers
Developer and Originator
Extensive
Listener
Brand Leader
Knowledge of end-user brand
Brand borrower
Sub Contractor
Limited
End user Brand
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Regional Content Provider Offerings

• Internet content Delivery
• Mostly based on news/media/entertainment
• (Albawa,Planet Arabia,AME Info etc.)
• IVR
• Call Group, Media Phone are providing Audio Text
  content
• Mobile Content
• Info2Cell
• Arabic Content from MMS Breaking News, MMS
  Greetings Cards, MMS Horoscopes etc to all
  regional Providers
• Ducont
• Based in Dubai, Delivers SMS based content
  such as breaking news, weather, infotainment.

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Internet as a medium for Content Delivery

• Several Arabic Web Portals are now serving the
  needs of Internet.
• Omantel offers all support for creation of Web
  sites including Web Hosting.
• New broadband technologies for delivery using DSL
  technologies and Set top boxes are evolving.

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Investment

• The objective of this initiative is to encourage
  investment within the Arabic countries through
  strategic alliances.
• Encourage Arabic Consortiums in bedding for new
  licenses
• Encourage strategic alliances between Arab
  Operators.
• Encourage use low cost model operation for the
  telecom sector.
• MobiNil as a case for the application of the low
  vost model.
•  

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Steps to increase digital content on Arab
Internet sites

• Legislation and execution of laws on protection
  of intellectual rights required.
• Technological Incubators to be formed for
  content-making companies.
• Digitalization of National Libraries
  universities, state institutions required.
• Internet Applications to be Arabized.
• Arab University students should have access to
  academic studies on the Internet.

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Mobile Content Delivery

• Mobile phone as a popular tool for receiving
  content owing to its portability and anytime
  features.
• SMS is probably the most popular form of Content
  delivery for Mobile terminals.
• New Generation handsets/PDAs complimenting the
  growth of Content delivery.
• Omantel introduced a Mobile Internet Portal to
  tap the vast potential of Mobile internet access
  using GPRS.

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Different Applications for delivery using Mobile
data services

• Key considerations for delivery of content
  using mobile data services

Note Market segmentation and categorization of
applications is vital for effective business
development
Person to Machine
Person To Person
Applications
Machine to Machine
Examples P2P- Text,Photo Messaging P2M- Pull
services IVR, Voting,
Competition M2P-Wireless Marketing M2M- Cashless
Payments
Machine to person
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Vision for Future

• Telecom Companies to work in partnership with
  regional Content providers (for example on
  revenue sharing basis) for delivery of Arabic
  Content.
• Plan to deliver advanced services (such as
  streaming video on demand as and when technology
  matures).
• Regulation of Content must be brought under
  uniform Arab/Regional policies.