Mobile Internet rises from ashes of dot.com implosion

Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta

With the end of the Indonesian Internet boom, it may seem that the business of making money online is no more. The fun is gone, and there is nothing to impel users to return to late-breaking news, no more large community, no more contests with free giveaways! Plus, the costs of computer hardware and rising telephone charges are also a hindrance for going back online.

But what about the mobile (cellular) community? Many of the Indonesian portals of yesteryear are gone, yet the community is still out there, looking for a replacement site to hang out and exchange ideas. Mobile phones are more ubiquitous in Indonesia compared to computers. Perhaps we may have another boom?

Take a look at the websites for some of the major cellular providers in Indonesia. Satelindo (www.satelindogsm.com), IM3 (www.m3-access.com) and Telkomsel (www.telkomsel.com) all have websites that offer their users additional services. From accessing billing information online to games to news and message boards, these "mini-portals" offer users features that were once only available to the high-flying internet portals.

Some of these features can be accessed via your mobile phone with a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) browser and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) wireless connection, such as the case with IM3. You can check out traffic updates, review e-mail and play games with your cell phone. There are even services using SMS, such as m-banking and news updates.

Of course, none of this is free. You would have to pay the SMS charges or the amount of bandwidth used on the GPRS. But it's peanuts compared to the constantly rising electricity and telephone charges that come with using a computer.

For cellular providers, this is an excellent way to develop their user base and garner additional profits. To obtain revenue, having a verified user base is vital. This is not for spamming or telesales purposes (because it would ultimately backfire!), but to offer additional personal services to users who may find it useful.

Signing up is verified online by the service that automatically sends an SMS to authenticate the user ID and Password. So there is no way that one user can have multiple log in names, which can be a drain on the provider's resources. Once registered, the user can be offered a number of services provided by the cellular services either via the internet or their mobile phone.

These services are offered in partnership by third party operators, who can provide content such as ring tones, news, games, and others for a nominal fee that is collected by the cellular operator. A mobile service that offers the most content and features would also be able to entice more users to switch over to their company. Not a bad win-win situation.

NTT DoCoMo has always been considered the leader in the mobile multimedia telecommunications field. While they provide the infrastructure, hundreds of small operators offer the services and content to entice users to download or visit. A once small limited operation slowly became a large mobile internet community.

Perhaps Indonesia's cellular providers, with their in-built community, can succeed where others failed. The most important aspect for a successful website or service is not the features, number of hits per day or amount of users it has. It's revenue, which the old dot cons failed to focus on. Revenue is the key to servicing, expanding and surviving in this dog-eat-dog world.

Indonesian operators offering content for mobile phones are also on the rise. Gila Bola (www.gilabola.com) offers the latest global football scores via SMS, while Boleh's mobile services (mobile.boleh.com) provides fun ringtones, pictures and logos. Surely, there are plenty more services that can be offered by new start-ups.

Considering that cell phones are becoming more and more cheaper while offering additional features, it would not be too long before Indonesia has a large number of people accessing the internet via their mobile phone. Cell phones with large color screens and built-in digital cameras are now infiltrating the market, allowing users to not only take pictures but also share it with friends and family. And while the land-based telephone rates are going up, cellular rates may soon be lowered as more and more people get connected. Who said the internet is dead? It continues to evolve.