Businesses Track Goods in Real-Time

Canadian operator Rogers for Business and Roambee, an on-demand logistics visibility company, have entered into a strategic collaboration to provide businesses in Canada with real-time monitoring for shipments and assets. With Covid-19 continuing to have an impact on the shipment of goods across borders, this collaboration uses IoT technologies to give businesses greater ability to view and monitor their goods and assets and more control over their supply chains.

Roambee’s platform provides businesses with insights into their supply chain with the ability to track their goods in real-time, detect security breaches and enable the recovery of missing or stolen assets and goods. Businesses will also be able to monitor inventory levels to eliminate shortages and excess goods.

With this announcement, Rogers said it continues to meet the needs of Canadian businesses and municipalities and expand its portfolio of IoT products, from vehicles and operations to networks and civic engagement.

As the pandemic continues and its impact on businesses deepens, Rogers’ business division has worked with a technology partner to offer something that is truly value-added. While we have written rather extensively lately about the effect of Covid-19 on consumers’ relationships to mobile services and their providers, the pandemic has affected large enterprises in a particular way that can be addressed: It has reduced the number of employees that can be working on-site and therefore made it more difficult for companies not only to manufacture goods but also to observe and control those that they do manufacture after they leave the factory.

When it comes to shipments, supply chains and control systems (for example, cold chains for the food and pharmaceutical industries), IoT is excellently well adapted to give managers the powers of visibility and control. With personnel reduced by the pandemic’s strictures, enhanced use of IoT will allow companies to keep track of shipment, inventory, and supply chains in both directions, in real time. It is particularly appropriate for a mobile operator such as Rogers Business to offer these services, as it not only provides the required connectivity but also has pre-existing relationships with the enterprise customers. From the customer point of view, Rogers is an entity they can trust, and from the technology partner’s point of view, Rogers is well positioned to bring Roambee’s platform to a larger group of clients than otherwise would be possible. From Rogers’ point of view, the offering is an opportunity to derive revenue while helping businesses through the difficult times of the pandemic.

Tarifica is a global SaaS company and a market leader in the real-time collection, analysis and delivery of telecom plan and pricing data worldwide. Through a mix of AI, modeling and market expertise, Tarifica tracks hundreds of thousands of plan and pricing data points daily. No other company tracks more. Tarifica's mission is to continuously convert data into the dynamic intelligence that fuels opportunities for its clients, the world's leading operators, regulators and consultants.
Learn more about Tarifica at www.tarifica.com.

Thai Operator Offers New Online SIM Card

Thai operator AIS has launched an online SIM card dubbed Gomo. The SIM, which costs THB 299.00 (US $9.34) per month, offers 50 GB of data at high speed and unlimited internet access at 512 Kbps, 100 minutes of voice calls to all networks and unlimited AIS Super WiFi. The offer also includes free YouTube Premium viewing with no ads for three months, the Work Anywhere Package, which allows free use of Office 365 and Zoom, and a Covid-19 life insurance plan valid for 45 days.

The offer is valid until 30 June, Subscribers can manage their services online 24 hours a day via the Gomo app. The SIM card must be purchased on AIS’s website, where users select a package, choose a number, make their payment, and wait for the SIM to be delivered to their home. The SIM is also activated by using the same app.

This offer from AIS, Thailand’s largest mobile operator, appears to be tailored carefully to the present moment in the marketplace. The coronavirus has upended the way people do business, their movements and their spending habits. Gomo, as an online-only SIM offer with generous features at a low price, is appropriate for users, particularly younger ones, who are working from home.

Gomo subscribers, in common with most of the younger demographic, are not likely to be heavy users of voice telephony, so 100 minutes a month to all networks should suffice. On the other hand, they are likely to be big consumers of data, so the monthly allowance 50 GB should be in the sweet spot. One sour note, though, is the throttling of data speed to 512 Kbps after the maximum is reached. At such a crawl-like speed, use of today’s applications is essentially impossible, so users will have to take care not to exceed 50 GB.

The inclusion of YouTube Premium, Office 365 and Zoom is a good idea, considering that unprecedented numbers of people are staying home due to the pandemic. Streaming entertainment content and online platforms for working at home are, under the circumstances, very much in demand, so having these services available free of extra charge under the offer is likely to be a crowd-pleaser.

And of course, since customers are trying to stay at or close to home as much as possible during the pandemic, providing a fully remote process for signing up and acquiring the physical SIM card is also appropriate and bound to be appreciated. And while we do not know the terms of the Covid-19 life insurance policy, the fact that it has no premium will certainly not be lost on subscribers, despite the grim reminder that it brings with it.

Tarifica is a global SaaS company and a market leader in the real-time collection, analysis and delivery of telecom plan and pricing data worldwide. Through a mix of AI, modeling and market expertise, Tarifica tracks hundreds of thousands of plan and pricing data points daily. No other company tracks more. Tarifica's mission is to continuously convert data into the dynamic intelligence that fuels opportunities for its clients, the world's leading operators, regulators and consultants. 

Learn more about Tarifica at www.tarifica.com.

Telefonica Launches Home Cooking App with Chef Ferran Adrià

Telefónica has again teamed up with renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adrià, a Telefónica ambassador since 2010, to create an app designed to help users cook professional dishes at home. The free Android and iOS app, called simply Adrià, offers step-by-step guides to 31 three-course menus eaten by staff at the El Bulli restaurant. It also includes advice from the chef and his team to help users plan menus, buy ingredients and optimize the time they spend cooking, as well as a personal area where users can save favorite menus and shopping lists and share photos of their creations. 

In this time of forced home confinement and fear of illness, there is certainly an appetite for public-spirited gestures from mobile operators—as well as an appetite for restaurant-quality meals in the absence of visitable restaurants. Spanish operator Telefónica has cleverly employed its brand ambassador Ferran Adrià, one of the world’s most famous and innovative chefs, to not only put his name on a food-oriented app but to provide the substance of the offering—that is, rich, value-added instruction and guidance for the purpose of creating high-grade meals under challenging conditions.

We think this will be appealing to the targeted audience, Spanish families and food enthusiasts who appreciate this kind of cuisine, and it will likely contribute to solidifying good impressions of Telefónica in their minds. Under the stay-at-home orders in Spain—a country particularly hard-hit by Covid-19—people are missing their usual comforts, and helping to assuage their feelings is bound to have a positive effect in terms of customer relations. The app’s program is well-thought-out, including not just recipes and cooking instructions but tangible guidance on how to source ingredients and plan menus. In short, an offering that is sensitive to the times, to the particular cultural proclivities of a target audience and to the way people interact with it is very likely to be a winner. This one may not drive massive data consumption, but by marrying one of the newest, most cutting-edge technologies, mobile telecom, with one of mankind’s most ancient practices, cooking, it should have a salutary psychological effect in this trying time. 

Tarifica is a global SaaS company and a market leader in the real-time collection, analysis and delivery of telecom plan and pricing data worldwide. Through a mix of AI, modeling and market expertise, Tarifica tracks hundreds of thousands of plan and pricing data points daily. No other company tracks more. Tarifica's mission is to continuously convert data into the dynamic intelligence that fuels opportunities for its clients, the world's leading operators, regulators and consultants. 

Learn more about Tarifica at www.tarifica.com.

Tele2 Russia Offers Free Apps for Customers Stuck Abroad

Mobile operator Tele2 Russia said that customers who are not able to return to Russia due to restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic will get free access to messaging services while abroad, through 30 April. The option will also be available for those prepaid customers with a zero balance for their devices.

The option will be available in Europe, Asia, Australia and the U.S. The messaging apps included in the deal will be WhatsApp, Viber and TamTam.

We have recently reviewed a number of initiatives that MNOs have taken to provide support to their subscribers during the coronavirus pandemic. This one from Tele2 Russia is noteworthy in that it not provides some relief for those affected by the situation but also involves a very valid self-preservation strategy for the operator.

As mobile customers find themselves in new and disadvantageous circumstances due to the disease itself and also to the economic impact of the restrictions on travel and movement, operators can be in danger of losing some of those customers, or at least losing some of the revenue from them, if those customers are no longer able to pay as much as before.

In this case, Tele2 Russia is addressing the issue of subscribers who are trapped outside their home country. Ordinarily, they would need to continue to pay international roaming charges or purchase special roaming packages for the duration. However, the operator, by zero-rating some popular messaging apps, is making it possible for these clients to stay in touch with family and associates in Russia while they must remain abroad for longer than anticipated.

Absent such a measure, Tele2 might find itself in the position of losing subscribers. Faced with long-term, higher-than-expected charges, they could possibly have no choice but to terminate service. And if contracts lapse, even if during a time of extraordinary pressures, they may not be renewed again when the crisis is over. So by throwing what is in essence a mobile lifeline to subscribers, the operator is making it possible for them to remain in its ecosystem, albeit through the medium of third-party OTT messaging apps. Then, when they can return home, they will be able to remain there, and happy to do so.

 Tarifica is a global SaaS company that is the market leader in the real-time collection, analysis and delivery of telecom plan and pricing data worldwide. Through a mix of AI, modeling and market expertise, Tarifica tracks hundreds of thousands of plan and pricing data points daily. No other company tracks more. Tarifica's mission is to continuously convert data into the dynamic intelligence that fuels opportunities for its clients, the world's leading operators, regulators and consultants. Learn more about Tarifica at www.tarifica.com.