Better data warehousing to boost telco revenues

LGR Telecommunications is offering advanced data warehousing and storage services as data traffic emerges as the new growth frontier for telecom operators and businesses, shifting attention to the need for secure, reliable and easy to retrieve electronic storage of large amounts of information.

“As telecoms operators look to optimize networks and create new revenue streams, advanced data warehousing and analytics solutions present the answers,” said Ayanda Dlamini, Business Development Manager at LGR Telecommunications.

With over 87 percent of East Africa access internet through their phones thanks to an explosion of affordable internet enabled phones. Competition in the voice segment of East Africa's telco's has hit fever pitch as attention is now shifting to provision of data.

Internet access through mobile phones doubled mobile data traffic across Africa since 2011.Regionally, Kenya reported 9.6 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2013, a 49.2 percent rise from a similar period in 2012. Safaricom Ltd. Revenue from data grew 20 percent to Ksh6.32 billion ($80 million) in the 2012- 2013 financial year, while Airtel mobile data reported a 65.8 percent rise in Africa.

In June, MTN Uganda reported an 85 percent growth in data consumption while Vodacom Group, which has operations in Tanzania, Mozambique, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as South Africa, reported a data revenue increase of 28.2 percent compared to the same period last year.

The trend has now seen local telecommunication companies offer unique value added services such as offers on data bundles with some partnering with social media platforms. Safaricom recently launched its Chatitude bundle enabling subscribers to access internet from as low as Ksh10 a day, MTN Uganda offers every customer 15MB free at the beginning of each month and a bundle offer of Ksh8.50 for 10MB of data while Vodafone offers 25MB at a rate of Ksh16.

It’s in this environment that LGR telecommunications offers data network models that accommodate the rapidly growing volumes of data passing through and being stored in the network while delivering insights in near real time. By analyzing the data in their systems, telecommunication companies are able to get a clearer understanding of customer behaviour, improve billing, reduce fraud, and drive both customer acquisition and retention.

“Telecom operators are confronted with the challenges of optimizing their networks, maximizing the potential of the data boom and realizing revenue growth in an environment where voice and sms revenues are declining creating the need to revisit their data management, data warehousing and analytics capabilities,” Mr Dlamini adds. When advanced analytic s is applied to the data residing in the data warehouse, it enables the telco to also to create new strategies to curb declining revenues in some streams as well as accelerate growth in emerging ones.

With a projection that in three years, around 20% of telecos revenue will come from data and to ensure that data traffic continues to bring revenue growth, operators need a clearer understanding of usage patterns and their own network performance, in order to tailor bundles and pricing as well as to optimize their networks to ensure optimal performance and cost efficiency. September 2013: LGR Telecommunications is offering advanced data warehousing. This understanding will come from more efficient use of the data residing in the telcos’ data warehouses. For example, market research firm Consumer Insight reported that some 49 per cent of 7 to 24-year-olds now have internet access in Kenya and that of these 74 per cent are on an online social network - 94 per cent on Facebook and 18 per cent on Twitter. At this level of sign-up, UK firm Portland Communications reports that Kenyans are now the second biggest Tweeters in Africa, after the South Africans. With such astronomical numbers data warehousing is emerging as an important tool to enable companies in decision making.

The telco might also improve its capacity management and performance monitoring to optimize limited spectrum available to it. It could better support cross-time zone billing, or plan data call routing and back haul for greater efficiencies. Better use of data can also enable more effective long term strategies – both from an operational and a product perspective.

For companies with such mammoth data to manage, experts say finding relevant insights amid vast volumes of data would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. In future, those who realize that data is a valuable asset that needs to be managed and more visible than ever before, and who thus maximize it, will be the ones that survive.