Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

OTA Goldmine

I decided to stay home today to wade off some pressure I am getting from left right and top.

I wanted to blog about how to handle programmers and how meetings-meetings-meetings KILL creativity and are the worst thing you can subject a developer to, but I will do that on Friday.

So, I started going through my old stuff in my spare (visitors’) bedroom. All stuffed, #pun, in a box labelled ‘POISON’ so that no one touches it.

One of the things that made me smile was my 2003 schematic for an OTA Server. I remember in 2003, Safaricom had a very weak Internet setup. (Mpaka leo anyways).

Sometimes I needed to demo to a client a WAP Content Portal I had created and the only two options I had was to take them to my house in Zimmer and show them from there, ama CARRY the PC to town and show the stuff.

But then came the IDEA. I bought some routers and configured a home network. Then I created an OTA Server whose purposes was to provision the settings one would need to access my HOME lan from their phone. All they needed to do was send an SMS [opensesame123] to a number and my OTA Server would send them the details. And now I could demo.

That was then.

Sasa OTA Server ni nini Salim?

Ohh. My bad. An OTA Server is a service that allows a MNO (Mobile Network Operator Kama Safcom, Zain etc) to remotely manage and configure your phone. Like when u dial sijui *445# from your Saf Line, their OTA Server sends you what they call ‘Internet Settings’. These settings are 1 of the many settings an OTA Server can provision. Some Settings can auto-install themselves while others ask you and give you a yes/no options. Another use of OTA is for remotely installing SIM applications on your phone/Sim. Kama Mpesa, Zap etc. Yeah. TechoLingo.

So, fast-forward to 2011. A friend of mine needed An OTA Server and asked me to get quoted. The best I could get astonished me. OTA goes for the following amount, Quoting a supplier I contacted last week :

Here is the pricing options for the DM Carrier Edition – The cheapest possible.

Product Packages:

Entry level (up to 200,000 devices)

No source code

Lower Server fee – $150,000

Only  Bootstrap,  Provision, FOTA, MO tree (no SCOMO, no DRMD)

Annual support – $30,000

Device activation fee – $1.00/device

Training – 1 week dev level – $15,000

Training – 1 week operations and support – $15,000

Minimal integration – $75,000

AAA Server, FOTA repository, Database integration, No API scripts, no CSS integration No device certification/IOT

My gawd!! Ngoja. Max 200 devices. No API. You depend on them. But, lemmi put things into perspective.

The above means that Kwanza on Install, as a Telco, you pay USD 150k. Then you pay them USD 30k for training and USD 75k for installation and integration. Then every 12 months, you need to pay USD 30k. This is small money and peanuts to most Telcos. But here comes the clincher! Everytime Salim dials *445#, the telco (Saf/Zain/etc) pays the DM Server Developers USD 1.  Fuck!

And this is the cheapest. The lite version.

Tukajam sote 10 M of us and we all dial *445# now, assuming Safaricom is on this model, they would incurr a bill of USD 10M immediately. And this is where most telco revenues suffer.

I am inspired.

Back to code…

Wazi.