Mobile operator Tele2 Lithuania said that almost 3,000 corporate subscribers have already connected to its new Mobile Station PBX service, launched in March 2017. According to the operator, the offer allows businesses to replace their fixed IP telephony infrastructure. The solution can be downloaded onto a smartphone as a mobile app, or it can be managed via a self-service portal. Feature phones can also be attached to the service.
Mobile Station integrates standard IP telephony functions such as call routing, recording, audio-conferencing, voicemail, missed-call information and other features. The basic cost is €7.50 (US $8.21) per device per month, while the premium Mobile Station Pro tariff is €8.90 (US $9.75) per device per month. Tele2 Lithuania’s business subscriber base totaled 169,500 at the end of the first quarter, which represents an increase of 9.4 percent over last year.
Tarifica’s Take
Small and medium-sized businesses are more likely than larger enterprises to have a heavy reliance on BYOD for employees’ communications needs, and SMBs are also more likely to have gone all-mobile. For these reasons, mobile-based, app-driven solutions that provide all or most of the functionalities of fixed line PBX systems are a good way to increase an operator’s revenue from SMB clients.
According to its statements, Tele2 Lithuania has had success with this offering in the first three months or so of its availability. The prices are reasonable, and the features are evidently what clients desire. While the number of new clients may not be very large, it has been only a short time since the product launch, and we cannot assess what percentage of the operator’s business customers are SMBs.
In any case, we believe that a fairly traditionally-oriented product such as mobile PBX substitutes can still be a winner in today’s mobile marketplace, and that in operators’ pursuit of targeted, value-added offerings that place them beyond the category of mere commodity-providers, this type of product should not be overlooked.