Safaricom, M-Gas Launch Home Cooking-Gas Service

Kenyan operator Safaricom and M-Gas have announced the launch of a prepaid domestic gas service. Customers will be able to purchase gas through Safaricom’s mobile money service M-Pesa at prices low enough that the cost of providing three meals for a household would come to less than KES 70.00 (US $0.68) per day. Each M-Gas set-up will include a gas cylinder and a two-burner gas cooker, which will be provided to customers at no upfront cost.

The gas cylinder will come equipped with a smart meter that shows how much gas the customer has paid for and how much they have remaining. Payments will be made through M-Pesa, with the gas automatically disconnecting when a customer has completely consumed the amount paid for. Safaricom is extending its digital and payment capabilities to M-Gas, powering the smart meter technology on each cylinder. 

When discussing the Internet of Things, it is a good idea to remember that the “things” in question can range from the large and technologically advanced to the very humble yet indispensable. Safaricom’s partnership with M-Gas (a subsidiary of U.K.-based Circle Gas) uses the IoT to link two household utilities that usually are not linked—phone and gas. Both are essential and both are used constantly on a daily basis; therefore the connection between the two is not as counterintuitive as it may seem at first. This innovative idea aims to make an essential commodity consistently available to a budget-conscious demographic that may struggle to make ends meet.

The partnership is noteworthy in that it provides the ability to cook with gas even to households that are not equipped with gas lines or a stove, since the service comes in the form of an IoT-enabled gas cylinder that connects directly to a purpose-built burner. Clearly, this service, with its very low price point is an outreach to the poor populations in Kenya, who may live in remote areas. As such, apart from whatever revenues it will generate, it should benefit the operator by bolstering its reputation as a company that is friendly to the poor and provides them access to vital services and commodities. The perception of community-mindedness helps strengthen an operator’s brand, particularly in developing markets such as this one.

The extension of the extremely popular and successful M-Pesa mobile money platform into the realm of IoT is creative and makes good market sense. By creating a synergy between mobile telephony, mobile money and domestic cooking gas, Safaricom is looking after the needs of its customer base, enhancing its public perception, and establishing a revenue stream that is securely based on an essential commodity. Since M-Pesa already has a huge number of users in Kenya, attracting customers to the gas service should not be a particularly onerous challenge.

Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance.  

To learn more about Tarifica, please visit www.tarifica.com 

Vodafone Romania Starts Selling IoT Products for Businesses

Vodafone Romania has begun offering IoT products aimed at retail businesses in a variety of sectors. The portfolio of IoT smart products includes a wide range of dedicated products, including Vodafone Smart Counting, Vodafone Digital Media Signage & Smart Analytics, Vodafone Heat Map, Vodafone Stock Alert and Vodafone Queue Management.

According to the operator: Smart Counting provides merchants with information about customer traffic in their stores and also enables them to organize their work more efficiently. Digital Media Signage & Smart Analytics allows business owners to deploy digital promotions based on specific market-segmentation criteria. The Heat Map monitors the most frequented routes in a store using smart sensors, furnishing data which merchants can use to better understand customers’ needs and reduce wait times.

The Stock Alert platform offers merchants an improved inventory management system that increases customer satisfaction by making sure that goods remain stocked on shelves. When a shelf reaches a pre-set minimum amount of products, store staff receive an alert and can quickly prepare new products to complement the stock.

Staying ahead of the IoT curve is an excellent strategy for operators, we believe, and this initiative from Vodafone Romania seems to fit the bill admirably. While connectivity for IoT worldwide is going to be an increasingly large source of revenue, only by creating original products can operators expect to realize the full potential of the IoT space. Full participation goes beyond a mere update to the traditional “dumb pipe” role and into real product innovation.

International Vodafone’s IoT Barometer study found that 34 percent of businesses in the world use IoT, up from 29 percent in 2017, and 70 percent of businesses adopting IoT report that they have gone beyond the pilot phase. While there are many consumer applications of IoT (especially for home use) and a vast number of uses in heavy industry, the retail sector is a particularly lively sector—a meeting point for consumer and enterprise needs—and therefore a fertile field for operators. And as because mobile information technology is already intimately involved in tracking movements and monitoring data consumption, the types of IoT uses that retail businesses can benefit from are particularly appropriate areas for mobile operators to develop technology for.

If Vodafone Romania has correctly understood the specific needs of retail enterprises in that country, it should be able to generate significant revenue from selling its suite of products, not to mention the ensuing revenue from running the service. 

Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance.  If you have any questions about this article, feel free to contact our Editor-in-chief John Dorfman at jdorfman@tarifica.com

To learn more about Tarifica, please visit www.tarifica.com 

Telstra Smart Home in Australia Features Amazon Echo

Australian operator Telstra has announced that, starting in February, it will be supporting Amazon’s voice-activated assistant Alexa on the Amazon Echo devices, and that it will integrate with Telstra Smart Home by the end of February. Alexa will be customized for the Australian market, connected to specifically Australian content sources, and with the virtual assistant provided with an Australian accent for her advent into that country’s market.
 
Australian customers will be able to ask Alexa to check the weather, traffic and sports scores, as well as to play music and set music alarms and timers. In addition to these functions, Telstra’s integration will allow Telstra Smart Home customers more opportunities to set up in-home automations and control their Telstra Smart Home compatible lights, smart plugs, and Zen thermostat, all through the Alexa service.
 
Australian customers will be able to purchase Amazon Echo (2nd generation) and Amazon Echo Dot (2nd generation) from Telstra stores and online starting in early February, with the Telstra Smart Home integration and a new bundle coming soon after.
 
 
Alexa is finally arriving in Australia, and Telstra is getting ahead of the game not only by moving quickly to support the service but by integrating its smart home offering with it. IoT technologies, which are growing exponentially worldwide, have provided huge opportunities for industry but also for consumers, in particular smart home systems. Forward-looking operators have identified these systems as an opportunity to provide value-added services that go well beyond traditional mobile and fixed offerings and help these operators achieve relevance in the changing marketplace.
 
Creating a proprietary smart home system instead of merely providing the data to drive a third-party system is a proactive approach for an operator such as Telstra to take. And now, integrating such a system with the Alexa assistant seems like the appropriate next step—and one that will furnish a great deal of seamless functionality.
 
Partnering with Amazon to make it possible for Telstra subscribers to control their Telstra Smart Home systems via Alexa makes a great deal of sense and will not only drive revenue to the operator (via data use as well as increased uptake of Telstra Smart Home systems) but also enhance its brand by association with Amazon’s very popular and long-awaited Alexa.

Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance.  

To learn more about Tarifica, please visit www.tarifica.com