After arriving into the UK in early March and being given one of its only free things, the world’s worst flu, TIAB’s first international office didn’t exactly get off to a flying start.
The ‘one or two’ Pommies in the Sydney office had warned me this may happen and all of a sudden my own memories of why I left here in the first place came flooding back. Just kidding Pommies, calm down.
Since the initial ‘gift’ from Her Majesty the Queen though, TIAB UK has been moving in a much more positive direction and is now fully up and running.
With only one Service Provider as a client, TIAB UK has just reached 4500 mobile connections in only 5 months of operation. We expect this SP to be at 7000+ by the end of the year along with 10,000+ PSTN services all being well.
TIAB’s main carrier agreement in the UK is with Gamma Telecom, one of the UK’s largest Tier 2 carriers. Gamma has over 400 Service Providers and is the only UK carrier to solely sell to Service Providers or to ‘the channel’ as it is referred to here. Via Gamma TIAB UK gets access to Three’s mobile network as well as Gamma’s own national fixed wire and IP network.
TIAB has recently become Gamma’s biggest mobile Service Provider and therefore has already made an impact in the UK telecommunications market. Gamma has already starting sending smaller potential resellers to TIAB which is extremely pleasing given the short amount of time we have been here and the huge choice of resellers Gamma could be sending them to.
Whilst the UK may be leaps and bounds ahead in bad weather and nasty flu’s, I think it is fair to that Australia is miles ahead in the telco space and, more specifically, in the MVNO/Franchise/SP space.
The 5 mobile networks here (Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Three) have done their very best to minimise the amount of Service Providers that buy wholesale services from them and operate under their own brand. Each network probably only has 3 or 4 companies that have a wholesale agreement, yet there are 2500 Service Providers registered with OpenReach (BT’s network that was spun off as a separate company as they have often talked about doing with Telstra in Australia). This has made it quite difficult for TIAB UK to gain access to all the carriers it wants to but it is in the final stages of signing an agreement with T-Mobile which is very positive and will give our clients the ability to connect 2G services in addition to the 3G services that Three offers.
The difficulty in gaining access directly to the carriers is exciting for TIAB UK as it reflects the state of the market here and only shows there is more opportunity for TIAB to help breakdown the barriers as we did in Australia. We look forward to giving individuals and organisations the ability to share in the profits that the telecommunications market offers, rather than letting carriers be the only ones to profit.
Next time you go to swear at Utilibill for taking longer than half an hour to port a mobile number, spare a thought for the folks in the UK where it recently changed from taking 3 days to now ‘only taking’ two days.
On the subject of Utilibill and billing in general, Australia is also way ahead of the UK market in this respect. Most billing systems I have viewed here are similar in look and functionality to Utilibill’s predecessor. Currently TIAB UK is using a third party’s billing system, which although this one is web based unlike most others here, it comprises 4 different systems (one for provisioning, one for billing, one for payments and one for reporting). And yes that means 4 different logins. So again all of this whilst making life a little difficult currently outlines the opportunity for TIAB once Utilibill is operational in the UK and can simplify the operation of a telco like it has done in Australia.
Now this update was not meant to be about taking the piss out of the UK market, no matter how easy it may be to do, so I will get back to the positive things going on.
On Monday 18th August TIAB UK is proud to welcome the arrival of its first employee, Forster’s favourite son Ben Arabin. Ben’s role will be a very varied role if ever there was one and will be a mix of CSG, Stepping Stone, BAM and Billing. Thankfully Ben is the perfect candidate for this role and no doubt will have a great time getting stuck into both his role as well as England’s national dish, the Chicken Tikka Massala.
Apart from seeing Ben’s smiling face, his arrival will be most welcomed as it will allow TIAB UK to get out and start looking at new SP opportunities. The UK telco market is at least 3 times the size of the Australian one and although it is fiercely competitive, the competition is closely controlled still as mentioned above. I have already had meetings with various prospects including a couple of Premier League Football clubs, one of London’s largest radio stations, one of the UK’s biggest pop star’s management company that is looking to cash in on the ‘brand’ of their client by launching a mobile service in his name (strange but true) as well as the UK’s largest online DVD rental business (with over 1 million members) who are looking to launch a broadband product to compliment their DVD service. Whilst it is early days with all of these opportunities it gives me great confidence that the TIAB model interests such a wide variety of organisations.
In addition to focusing on the growth in Service Provider numbers for the UK, we will be working hard on bringing in-house some of the functions that have currently been outsourced to third parties. TIAB has a call centre in Newcastle that provides our Stepping Stone functionality. We also have another call centre in Newbury (an hour outside of London, some of you may know it as the home of Vodafone) that provides some of the functionality of CSG. This organisation also provides our billing services as well. Over the next 12 months we will be looking at building up the team here which will allow us to have more control over the service that is provided to our SP’s and the end users.
The first of these services to come in house will begin with the arrival of Utilibill which is currently scheduled for October. The Utilibill nerds have been working hard to make this happen and without this system I am convinced selling the TIAB solution to the UK market would be a much more difficult task.
For those of you that know London, TIAB has set up the world’s smallest Global HeadQuarters (currently one desk) in Clerkenwell, in the heart of East London. I am not quite sure what it is famous for, maybe just EastEnders, but nevertheless it has definitely been a great home for TIAB’s first international operation.
Please feel free to drop by should any of you be coming to England and I will be happy to show you round. It won’t take long I promise. Unless you want to port your mobile number that is, in which case you better give yourself an extra couple of days.
Author: Damien Gould
Email: damien@telcoinabox.com
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