Bouygues Telecom’s Second-Line Offer Addresses BYOD Concerns

French mobile operator Bouygues Telecom has introduced B.duo, a service that allows the operator’s personal and business subscribers—as well as customers of its budget arm, B & You—to add a second line to their smartphones at a monthly cost of €2.00 (US $2.64). The service does not require a second phone or a dual SIM card. Instead it works with a single SIM, and specific prefixes are used to determine which line a call or SMS should be routed to or from where it has originated.

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) adoption by large numbers of businesses is a movement that has experienced considerable growth worldwide. It appears that this trend will continue, with forecasts estimating the BYOD and enterprise mobility market to be worth US $284.7 billion in 2019, which is a substantial increase from 2013’s value of US $72.34 billion. Although North America is expected to have the largest market for BYOD, significant increases are also expected in Europe and Asia. While operators are experiencing the same privacy and security concerns all over the world, they are wise to offer services that their particular markets will find appealing when devising solutions for BYOD use.

In France, Bouygues Telecom’s B.duo offers a good solution for the concerns that have been triggered by BYOD use. Having two numbers on one SIM card will allow professionals to have a dedicated line for business use and one for personal calls and SMS, on the same mobile phone. Additionally, there are several other instances in which two lines are valuable in a BYOD environment; for example, users may choose to associate one of the lines with a specific need, which will enable them to direct all calls and SMS pertaining to that issue to the line in question. As an added bonus, B.duo is convenient to activate and is being offered by the MNO at relatively low cost. We expect that these are factors that will encourage use of the service as an alternative to OTT options.

Another approach to distinguishing personal from business use in the BYOD phenomenon is being provided by South Korea’s SK Telecom in partnership with Red Bend Software, a global software and solutions provider. SK Telecom, which is South Korea’s top mobile operator, is launching its T Persona Premium service on LG Electronic’s LG-F350ST smartphone, which will provide customers with two mobile numbers and allow them to separate personal from business use. The LG device is only available from SK Telecom and uses two different operating systems that have been embedded into it to separate the business and personal data.

 The above item appeared in a recent issue of The Tarifica Alert, a weekly resource that analyzes noteworthy developments in the telecoms industry from around the world. To access all of the latest articles and issues:  http://www.tarifica.com/TarificaAlert.aspx