Snatching food from the tiger's mouth: the story of WeChat phone book and operators

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In the past two days, my friend circle has been flooded with a message, which has nothing to do with the just-passed Double Eleven or APEC. It is just 11 words: Use WeChat phone book to make calls, free of charge!

It has to be said that the WeChat team's PR has accurately grasped the word "free". In the Internet age, free seems to be a gimmick for the Internet. In fact, free calls on WeChat are nothing new. If you don't use a phone book, the easiest way is to turn off the camera during WeChat video calls. Of course, this requires a high network connection.

When WeChat was launched, text messages gradually declined. At least I haven't sent text messages for a long time. This time, WeChat has the tendency to subvert the traditional calling mode again, but is it really so?

VOIP and WeChat Phonebook

Simply put, it is to add a shell to the phone's address book, text messages and voice functions. If the other party is online, then the call can be made through the network. If not, it can be converted to a message or a normal voice call. And it will not spy on the user's privacy, because most of the user's authorization is done offline.

First of all, this is not compatible with VOIP calls, and it also bypasses policy restrictions. Currently, VOIP is not allowed in my country, so China Telecom's Yixin and China Mobile's Jego only support foreign "Internet to phone" and not domestic calls. For example, you can make free calls to domestic phones through Yixin from abroad, but domestic users will see that the call is made from a landline in Zhejiang. But WeChat phone book is different. The model of WeChat phone book is as follows:

If the user's WeChat is online, the Internet channel will be used. If the WeChat friend is not online, a voice message can be left. In addition, the Internet call can be converted to a normal call mode at any time. In the Internet channel mode, the user needs to pay for the traffic fee. If the user accesses the Internet through WIFI, it can even be "free". If the call is completed by a normal phone, the user pays the operator according to the original package. In other words, there is no "Internet to phone" call mode (of course, if the policy allows, it can also be opened), which is different from some VOIPs that skirt the rules.

Call interface

I instigated a few friends to use WeChat Phone Book and found that there was no incoming call interface for mobile phones, but only a notification popped up in the notification bar of the mobile phone. It was very inconvenient.

I specifically consulted about this issue. Because I didn't buy the operator's interface, there is no incoming call interface. For the IP phones we usually use, we all bought interfaces from operators. WeChat, which simply sets up a server and creates an APP, will not have a dedicated call interface.

And if the version is not updated to the latest version, sometimes you can't make free calls. This makes me, a user who doesn't update unless the software forces me to do so, very distressed.

What is the significance of phone book?

The significance of WeChat address book to Tencent lies in two aspects: first, it helps Tencent seize the entrance to mobile Internet as quickly as possible; second, it increases the stickiness of WeChat to users.

For the three major operators, WeChat Phonebook will indeed transform some ordinary calls into "network to network" Internet calls, turning voice into traffic. This is just like WeChat for SMS, realizing OTT for some voice calls.

Of course, network operators will get traffic revenue, but with the extensive use of WIFI, traffic is not necessarily obtained by mobile service providers, and may even be charged monthly together with fixed-line broadband. Even if the basic operators can receive traffic fees, can the traffic make up for the decline in voice and text messages as expected by the operators?

opposite

WeChat is free, but SMS is charged. WeChat phonebook is free, but traditional phone calls are charged. This is how people always put WeChat and operators in opposition. WeChat crashed a few times before, and there were even rumors that it was caused by operators, which was ridiculous. But this time, Tencent did not spend a penny to achieve a super large-scale installation, which was understood as a provocation to operators, and there were even rumors that operators banned WeChat, which was a complete misunderstanding.

This money is not enough

WeChat Phonebook makes calls through Wifi, 3G, and 4G networks, which is also known as VoIP. The most successful brand in this field is Skype, which has 300 million users worldwide, and Tencent has installed nearly 600 million WeChat users. It seems that the impact on operators is extremely strong. Then there is news that a certain operator has banned WeChat Phonebook, and there is a lot of criticism from the public. The operator is once again caught in the crossfire.

Before the launch of WeChat Phonebook, WeChat and QQ mobile apps already had voice call functions. This time, WeChat Phonebook has made voice calls an independent service, which is more convenient to operate. It is also linked to the address book and WeChat friends, and has a WeChat user base of 600 million.

Under the influence of these applications, the duration of user calls has gradually decreased. Take China Mobile as an example. From 2011 to 2013, the user MOU (average monthly call duration per household) was 525 minutes, 512 minutes, and 486 minutes respectively, while the corresponding voice revenue was 364 billion, 368 billion, and 355.6 billion respectively, with revenue decreasing.

A China Mobile employee joked: "The annual revenue reduction is only about 10 billion yuan. This kind of variable is not felt at all when the operators are faced with a revenue of hundreds of billions of yuan. The impact of OTT is actually not as fierce as the outside world hypes."

In fact, as early as the year when WeChat appeared, China Mobile's SMS usage fell sharply, and its annual SMS usage dropped from 744.5 billion to 734.1 billion. That year, China Mobile tried to adopt a charging strategy for WeChat, which led to the "WeChat charging" incident and triggered months of discussion in the industry. But in the end, "WeChat charging" was nothing. That year, China Mobile's SMS revenue dropped from 44.2 billion to 41.3 billion. Similarly, "It's only 2.9 billion less, and it's actually not noticeable."

Lose in one place, gain in another

In 2013, China Mobile's SMS and voice revenues decreased by 16.3 billion, but its mobile data traffic revenues increased by 38.8 billion, from 66.5 billion to 105.3 billion. The growth in traffic revenues made up for the loss in traditional revenues.

Ning Yu, deputy general manager of China Mobile's system support department, commented on his WeChat: "Tencent's launch of WeChat Phonebook was expected long ago. It is a trend for data traffic to replace voice. If others don't do it, operators will do it themselves." What operators need to care about is: In the long run, can the growth of data traffic business outpace the decline of traditional business?

Should the operators just sit back and surrender?

Operators invest hundreds of billions of yuan every year to build and maintain networks, while WeChat only needs to develop an app, set up a server, and then notify users that we can make free calls. Operators spend so much money and can only serve as a pipeline. No matter how you think about it, this is unreasonable. Although charging for WeChat phone books may be abandoned like WeChat, it is definitely not the operator's way to surrender in the face of such huge interests. How to deal with it?

In fact, China Mobile released a VoLTE technology white paper in June 2013, covering the end-to-end technical requirements for TD-LTE network construction, terminals, services, user development, etc. The white paper pointed out that VoLTE has become the mainstream voice solution in the world, and emphasized that China Mobile's VoLTE will be commercially available in mid-2014.

On December 4, 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued three TD-LTE licenses to China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom respectively. The issuance of TD-LTE licenses promotes China Mobile's overall business layout in the LTE era, and China Mobile's VoLTE commercialization is imminent.

In February 2014, China Mobile released the next-generation converged communications white paper, which redefined the basic communication services in the 4G era and put forward relevant requirements for the next-generation converged communication technology from 2014 to 2015. The "new call" defined in the white paper is to improve user call quality and experience with VoLTE as the core.

Operators need to spend a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to deploy VoLTE, and they also need to conduct a lot of testing and optimization work in the later stage to ensure and improve QoS (Quality-of-Service) standards. After all, when WeChat phonebook has low call quality on Wifi, users may blame the operator's poor network, but once the operator has a problem, it will not only be unable to shirk responsibility but will also attract criticism.

summary

At present, it takes time for operators to deploy VoLTE, and WeChat Phone could have used this gap to improve user stickiness. Whether it will be successful depends on whether the three major operators can quickly reach an agreement and form a unified standard.