It’s a Wi-Fi World

Posted on April 23, 2013 by

We’ve written in the past about the challenges of being a mobile network operator (MNO) in today’s highly connected mobile world. Here are some very simple statistics that demonstrate one of the problems that today’s MNOs grapple with, and an explanation of why so many are plugging into Bango.

The data refers to Bango’s mobile traffic across the majority of our partners, including both payment and analytics customers, during the first week of March 2013.

The overall sample size is in the tens of millions, and those users were using apps, visiting mobile news sites, buying games content and a huge variety of other activities on their phones and tablets. Continue reading →

Posted in mobile payment, operator billing, Wi-Fi | Leave a comment

HTML5 apps – Thriving without an app store

Posted on April 19, 2013 by

Chantal Tode, writing for Mobile Marketer, has written a really interesting piece entitled “How to market HTML5 apps without the benefit of an app store”.

She touches on many of the issues that Bango’s payment customers wrestle with. The biggest difficulty faced by HTML5 apps is the absence of a focused distribution channel. Native apps by contrast have an excellent distribution platform that’s sitting on the phone’s home screen: the app store. Furthermore, a native app can be downloaded and will then leave an icon on the device, where an HTML5 app would require the user to set up a shortcut to the web to have the same ease of access. This isn’t complex, but neither is it intuitive. Of course mobile web app stores exist, and there is considerable OEM, developer and operator interest in Mozilla’s Firefox Marketplace, for example. Continue reading →

Posted in html5, mobile payment, Mobile payments | 1 Comment

Bango’s Ray Anderson responds to Facebook Home

Posted on April 5, 2013 by

Bango’s Ray Anderson responds to Facebook HomeSays it’s all about ‘the next billion’ users. Facebook will provide a frictionless social experience while Bango will provide frictionless payment for content and services.

Since mid-2012, Bango has been partnered with Facebook to provide mobile web carrier billing. Bango’s integration provides a frictionless payment experience to hundreds of millions of Facebook’s mobile users. Continue reading →

Posted in Facebook, mobile payment, operator billing | 1 Comment

Bango hits 100 operator connections

Posted on March 28, 2013 by

Bango (AIM: BGO) now has 100 mobile operator payment connections globally. Bango continues to expand the reach of its mobile payments platform to deliver its frictionless payment experience as widely as possible for the world’s leading content providers.

Bango’s 100th operator connection was in Columbia, connecting Telefónica subscribers into BlackBerry World. Those subscribers can now pay for digital goods and services without needing cards, pre-registered accounts or having to send SMS messages, instead they pay with one-click operator billing, charging purchases to their phone bill. This 100th connection means that Bango now has active connections in 47 countries, including the leading mobile operators in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and many more, and extends Bango’s reach to more than one billion mobile subscribers. Continue reading →

Posted in carrier billing, operator billing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Mobile World Congress 2013: The massive challenge and opportunity in front of the mobile operators

Posted on March 6, 2013 by

Mobile World Congress 2013

I come to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress every year. I often don’t see much of the expo or conference itself, as I stuff my diary with as many meetings as seems reasonable from my cosy office desk. Six meetings in a day is only reasonable on paper. Everywhere else it’s a battery-burning, laptop-dragging, patience-testing nightmare.

But this year I’ve scheduled fewer meetings, and given myself more time. So I’ve been wandering around the exhibition, soaking up the bigger picture. I’ve seen a few things I thought I’d share. Continue reading →

Posted in Mobile payments, Mobile World Congress | Leave a comment

Bango holds Nexus 2012: ‘Making money from the mobile web’

Posted on December 27, 2012 by

Last week Bango held the latest in its long-running Nexus event series, in San Francisco, CA. Bango Nexus is a prestigious, invite-only event that brings together key players shaping the mobile internet.

The theme this year was “Making money from the mobile web” – both the central opportunity and challenge for today’s giants of mobile. Consequently the speakers at Bango Nexus were charged with identifying the long-term strategies for effective mobile monetization. Continue reading →

Posted in carrier billing, digital content, in app billing, Mobile commerce, mobile payment, Mobile payments, mobile web | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The revolution you’re missing: mobile payments and emerging markets

Posted on November 22, 2012 by

We mobile payment watchers love to get hot under the collar over the latest VC backed payment technology or oddly-named initiatives from banking giants. We picture well-dressed early adopters waving their phone to pay for coffee in a Manhattan Starbucks, and flatter ourselves that we’re at the bleeding edge of payment technology.

We rarely consider the truth, which is that much of the innovation around mobile banking and payments is occurring in the developing world. By leaping straight to a pervasive wireless infrastructure, and widening access to mid-level, connected feature phones, many in the developing world are enjoying access to mobile services that we in the developed world would never conceive of. Continue reading →

Posted in mobile payment, Mobile payments | Tagged , | 1 Comment