With more than 1 million active users contributing a reported $7 to $8 in average revenue per month, AT&T Wireless Services Inc.’s mMode offering is seen by many industry analysts as a reasonable success in the early stages of wireless data services.
But compared with technology partner and financial investor NTT DoCoMo Inc.’s i-mode service, which has garnered tens of millions of users and generates hundreds of millions in revenues for the Japanese company, mMode’s success could be considered under-whelming.
In hopes of bridging a portion of that difference, AT&T Wireless launched an updated version of its mMode service last week designed to provide an easier user interface, more graphically rich content and the potential for more revenue-generating value-added services.
“We’re taking mMode to the next level,” explained Andre Dahan, president of AT&T Wireless Mobile Multimedia Services. “We’ve passed the early-adopter stage and these new enhancements are designed to bring mMode to the mass market.”
The carrier noted that while the update takes advantage of its DoCoMo ties, the new mMode has a number of upgrades geared toward the habits of its different U.S. customer base.
“We wanted to make it easier for people to use when they are doing something else,” said Sam Hall, vice president of mMode Services. “We have found that unlike [DoCoMo’s] customer base, our customers are looking for short bursts of information when they are on the go.”
To that end, AT&T Wireless said a number of the key mMode improvements include fewer clicks to set up the service and access favorite sites, a more simple home page, additional personalization through the My mMode link, new content designed for use in the wireless environment and a clearer user interface.
The carrier noted one of the more important updates, which has also been acknowledged in the past by industry analysts as a key for greater wireless data adoption, is the reduction in the number of clicks required to access information. According to AT&T Wireless, the number of clicks required for initial setup of the new mMode service has dropped from 40 clicks to one click, while the time required to initiate service using the carrier’s GPRS network has plummeted from seven minutes to 30 seconds.
AT&T Wireless reported similar time savings in setting up the carrier’s e-wallet application, buying and downloading ring tones and games, and accessing information.
AT&T Wireless also noted improvements in personalization through both a handset and Web-based My mMode interface that allows users to customize the look of the service and by the choice of terms the carrier uses to describe functionality. Hall explained that instead of using the term “History” to show a customer the pages they last visited, the new mMode uses the term “Where I’ve Been,” which it found in testing to be more intuitive for consumers.
“People want more personalization options and more customer-friendly terms,” Hall added.
AT&T Wireless is also providing a richer content selection through the inclusion of XHTML capabilities. The inclusion fulfills previous plans by the carrier when it first launched the mMode service in April 2002 to upgrade the then WAP-only browser with HTML capabilities to open the door to more content providers.
“By adopting XHTML, mMode’s enhanced architecture will enable an even broader community of developers to offer compelling new content to our customers,” Hall added.
Analysts commended AT&T Wireless on its attempts to widen the appeal of wireless data services.
“AT&T Wireless’ mMode delivers many of the essential components-along with personalization features-which should help drive broader adoption of wireless data services,” said Linda Barrabee, senior analyst at the Yankee Group.
Despite the additional capabilities of the new mMode service, AT&T Wireless said it is keeping pricing the same as the previously offered mMode service. Those plans start at $3 per month for a pay-as-you-go option and up to $20 per month for 8 Megabytes of included data transmission.
AT&T Wireless added that even though some of the available content on the new mMode offering would be more graphically rich and thus would theoretically require more kilobits to transmit compared with the previous WAP-only service, it does not expect customers to see much difference in their usage.
“We went out of our way to make sure the home pages were quick loading, which relates to the amount of data transmitted,” explained AT&T Wireless spokeswoman Danielle Perry. “Most of our mMode customers are on plans that include data transmission, and we have found that they usually don’t go over their allotment.”
