Mobile operators' business models in the mobile data service market

Abstract

In the mobile data service market there are several different actors. The main actors are the operator, the content provider, the aggregator and the sub-contractor. The operator is often in control of the market and has the content providers and aggregators connected to them. The sub-contractors are connected to the operator via the aggregators. All operators have a business model towards their content providers, and are in this area often referred to as content provider access (CPA). The model is the connection between the operator and a content provider or aggregator. The CPA agreement contains a lot of information concerning the revenue model, the collaboration model, the adoption facilitation. To find this information can be very hard, and to figure out how to get it is more demanding than analyzing it. The existing models are mainly open or closed. The differences between them are the operators’ relation to their content providers and aggregators, and the adoption facilitations. The closed model uses a high degree of quality control on the services, as well. The revenue models to the operators are mostly based on a percentage that the content providers and the aggregators receive of the traffic generated by the services provided. The revenue share is very different from operator to operator but it seems like most of the content providers and aggregators are pleased with the share they receive. But the revenue model is not just about what that content provider and the aggregator receives. They often have to pay a startup fee and monthly fees to be a part of the partnership provided by the operators’ business model. Few operators with an open business model have made any adoption facilitations to their content providers and aggregators. They consider service providers as been a company working on their own with no responsibilities for the operator. The closed model has a much more close relationship with their service suppliers due to a larger degree of adoption facilitation and quality control of the services. The content providers and aggregators consider their respective operators business model as very successful both when it comes to the amount of services offered and number of users to the services.