Directi’s Skenzo raises funding from Ashmore Group
Skenzo – a leading provider of technology, in the traffic monetization business, has raised undisclosed significant funding parting a very small stake. Skenzo is Directi Business Unit / Subsidiary.
Skenzo was the fastest growing domain parking company worldwide for 2006 & 2007. They also claim that they are globally number one in domain parking. [I am not quiet sure of this claim] Divyank Turakhia, Co-Founder of Skenzo said,
We are very bullish about the Direct Navigation Industry. We plan to deploy sizeable resources for building unparalleled technology products in the direct navigation, online traffic monetization and advertising spaces.
J. Michale Lind of Ashmore group said,
In a short span of time Skenzo has become one of the strongest players in the traffic monetization industry. We believe the Skenzo team has done a terrific job. We are very excited about this investment and are looking forward to working in close partnership with Skenzo to help further accelerate its growth and strengthen its leadership position.
Directi is doing brisk business in the domain name industry and have always offered value to customer. However, they had a glitch in their system last evening at 5:30PM which restrained customers from grabbing .asia domain names. I paid a 80% premium and bought Convergence.Asia through GoDaddy.
Penalize Telcos or DoT / TRAI for failure of Do Not Call Registry ?
Am I Fu**ing insane asking to penalize the DoT / TRAI ? Well, you’ve read that right. The TRAI in its recommendation has proposed to fine the Telco carrying the unsolicited call. Telcos have no role to play as they are merely completing the call. [It is hard to believe that Telcos are selling consumer data as alleged by some. Get ready for bigger privacy problems if shortsighted people in TRAI authorize Location Based Services.] Even Tele-marketers are willing to comply by the National Do Not Call Registry.
In our analysis we have found that the TRAI / DoT and NIC are the culprits of designing and implementing a flaky and an unstable system leaving most telemarketers frustrated. I have more than a dozen complaints in my Inbox on NDNC Registry’s scrubbing module not working, Authentication problems, etc. [Well these are the Telemarketers who have registered and paid the required fees, yet unable to conduct business]
This is the sad state of Indian democracy where you can’t go against the Government bodies and they continue to make big mistakes again and again.
Is WiMax a Failure ? Tata Communications acknowledges shortcomings
At the international WiMax conference in Bangkok, Buzz Broadband CEO, Garth Freeman called the WiMax technology as a disaster that failed miserably and closed the networks. Mr. Freeman said,
In other parts of the world, citywide Wi-Fi is losing steam,
WiMAX may not work. The technology is mired in opportunistic hype. The technology had indoor coverage issues, which he yesterday said had earned him a quick and negative reaction at the time from his supplier, Airspan.
His words stunned many at the conference. Tata Communications [formerly VSNL] has also acknowledged indoor loss at just 200m from the base station at an IEEE conference last year. [This makes sense from the countless complaints received from consumers on this blog and forum] This is a serious setback to Indian telcos and the DoT which have set ambitious targets on broadband penetration.
In a separate yet related development, The NYTimes is reporting that hopes of having MuniFi or City wireless is fast losing steam in the US.
Tata Teleservices + Indicom + Communications – Bundle of Poor QoS & Liars
The Tata house which boats to be the oldest and one of the ethical business houses [unfortunately it is not] in India should be ashamed of its management at Tata Communications [erstwhile VSNL] , Tata Indicom and Tata Teleservices. You are already aware of the poor QoS its broadband division delivers [also see comments from customers] and yet fails to acknowledge it. E-mails sent to S. Ravindran – VSNL [ravindrasn.s@vsnl.co.in] went unanswered.
Now after partnering with Virgin, a PR eyewash says,
In a first-of-its-kind in India’s telecom sector, Tata Teleservices on Friday announced that they will offer penalty voluntarily to their subscribers if the quality of their services was below standard.
Tata is in no way the first company to introduce such service. I have already received credit from Bharti Airtel Mobile twice, but I am not sure if it was by virtue of me bing a premium customer they handled it so seamlessly or every Airtel customer is entitled for the same.
Virgin and other Global partners should should be aware of Tata’s sinking brand quality in Telecom before enhancing their partnerships further. You can taste the arrogance of Tata’s top management from a Global Consultant – Ajoy Lal.
Note: Views expressed here are my personal views and I stand by them in my individual capacity. They should not be linked to the companies where I have worked in past or consulting in present or future. On a side note, QoS and customer service hardly get any weightage in models we use to Analyze, otherwise you know what my recommendation will be 
GSM wireless subscriber base over 185 million in India
GSM party continues to rock in India as they collectively added 5.9 million subscribers in Feb-08 taking the total tally to 184.67 million [excludes Reliance Communications subscribers]
Bharti Airtel continued to gain market share with addition of 2.3 mn subs. The company had an impressiveGSM net adds’ market share of 38%. Bharti is likely to have 23.8% market share of overall wireless market.
Vodafone India arrested its 6 month MoM declining trend graph and added 1.4 mn subscribers. The decline was largely due to problems in the circles of Delhi and U.P(E).
Idea cellular recorded its highest ever net adds of 919K followed by BSNL with 824K.
Metro growth continues to slow down with only 2.3% MoM growth in subscribers. Growth of “B” circles at 3.6% MoM finally overtook growth of “A” circles at 3.1% MoM. “C” circles are the winners with 4.4% MoM growth.
What does Higher Subscriber Numbers Mean ?
For sure it does mean falling ARPU and hence mild shock on the bottomline.
However, I have noticed an interesting promotion from Vodafone in the pre-paid segment. They introduced a Rs 105 full value talk time recharge. After a month it was bumped up to Rs 120 and the last time I inquired about it, it had reached Rs 130. This essentially means the company is trying hard to bump up the customer’s re-charge value. The trend seems to be continuing since the sales of those pre-paid cards hasn’t been disappointing
Virgin Mobile + Tata Indicom force to issue MVNO licenses
Finally, the executives in the Tata boardroom have woken up and took a bold step to let UK’s Virgin Mobile operate on their CDMA network without waiting for any MVNO license from DoT Tata Teleservices will benefit from the deal as their mobile network is currently underutilized. Exactly a month ago, in a somewhat lengthy post, I had said Telecom is not a viable business for everybody and instead ambitious business houses should take the MVNO route.
Analyzing the deal closely, Virgin will act as a franchisee of Tata Teleservices [It is not TTSML] and resell its CDMA-based mobile services. However, the exact difference between a MVNO and a franchisee are not clear 
Virgin expects to add some 5 mn subs in the next three years (about 1.1% market share in 2010). Company also expects to break even in three years indicating that a 1.1% market share and this pricing would be sufficient for break-even levels.
Virgin mobile is mostly popular in the pre-paid segment amongst the youth in countries where it operates, a direct competition to Vodafone in India. Virgin is pricing outgoing calls at Rs1/minute for the first two minutes and Rs0.50/min after that. his compares with current rates of Rs1/minute for incumbents. I really doubt if the Indian youth will go the Virgin way as most of them don’t like to get locked on to unappealing CDMA handsets [one of the worst characteristics]. Virgin should also consider striking a deal with one of the GSM operators.
As usual, empty vessels [COAI] were making noises to block the deal but looks like there are no stops for the Ferrari lover Ratan Tata
Tags: Virgin Mobile, Tata Indicom, MVNO, Mobile India
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