Rajesh Jain of Netcore has written a 5 point to do list on how can VAS become a bigger opportunity for Telecom Operators. We liked it so much that we are reproducing his post here on WATBlog..

Rajesh Jain’s 5 Pointer on How can VAS become a bigger opportunity for telecom operators.

Reasonably-priced Flat-rate Data Plans: The US leads the way here. From being a laggard in the use of mobile data, the US is now showing the way with all operators having flat-rate data plans. In India, the right price point, according to me, is Rs 100 per month. A plan like this will encourage the use of the mobile Internet and other services, and create the necessary pull for companies to start building out mobile data services. Operators will benefit from large-scale adoption of data plans.

More Spectrum for Operators: Mobile operators in India have to make do with much less spectrum than almost anywhere in the world. The big cities, especially metros, have a severe shortage of spectrum. And so, mobile operators tend to focus on using the spectrum for voice rather than data. This needs to change. A worry is that even when 3G comes along (and that date still seems a year away - as it has been for the past 3 years), operators will focus more on voice than VAS given the spectrum constraints.

Better Revenue Shares for Off-deck VAS Players: Mobile operators need to encourage off-deck VAS players and provide them support for billing. In this case, the billing fee should be 15% or so, rather than the 50-75% that is currently the norm (and which can continue for on-deck services). This will encourage VAS players to create a wide variety of services, since it provides a revenue stream where subscribers pay rather than a complete reliance only on advertising.

Separate VAS from the Government Fees: VAS should be treated separately so that operators don’t end up paying the 12-15% of topline as revenue share to the government. In fact, for VAS, service tax also needs to be applicable only depending on the actual service. For example, if my cash balance as a subscriber is used to pay for a book purchase, then it does not make sense to pay nearly 25% taxes. In that situation, the mobile operator is acting more as a mall than a telecom operator.

Creation of a VAS Operator Licence: More elaborated on this point in his earlier post.

We had also written a post recently on Mobile number portability which talked about how VAS would become important and almost imperative for telecom operators and could possibly reverse the revenue share. We feel that mobile number portability (depending upon how its executed) could single handedly revolutionize the VAS market in India.

Anyone who has anymore pointers?

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