When your past comes back to haunt you.. Tom Hume blogs about second subscriptions

Tom Hume of Future Platforms is another of our friends and has been a long term fellow traveller on this path to the future of technology, telecoms, mobile and communities. Tom wrote a blog a few days ago about second subscriptions, and had a funny line in it:

About 5 years ago I saw a talk from Tomi Ahonen where he discussed multiple SIM ownership in Finland and mentioned the number of devices he carried with him personally. "Yeah yeah" I thought, filing him mentally under "crazy Finn" and getting back to business. But he was, of course, completely right and it's happened, hasn't it?

Tom then goes on to explain how he already has now joined this group and carries around him several SIM cards in his phone, the wireless modem to his laptop, etc.

First, thanks Tom, I really do appreciate it, that you blogged about it so honestly, that yes, once you thought an idea of mine was typical "Silly Tomi" kind of thinking, and that now you've noticed it has come true.

I wish all my forecasts would have turned out that way (like anyone making predictions, I've got my fair share of them massively wrong, such as recently the one about MMS picture messaging for example, I often am asked to explain what went wrong with that forecast, ha-ha).

But on the really big picture things - that mobile phone subscriptions would exceed human populations (in over 50 countries already); that SMS text messaging is addictive; that yes, we will carry multiple subscriptions (and often multiple phones), I'm quite happy with my record, more right than wrong, and for any forecaster, that is about the best you can hope for. And thank you Tom for putting it so nicely, that even the "Crazy Finn" thinking might turn out right in the end, ha-ha..

I took a quick look through my second book, M-Profits (as it was one I wrote by myself, I'd have nobody to share the blame with for any wrong forecasts) and thought I should really make a review of the major predictions and forecasts, and report on how the forecast turned out. This could be a fun - and perhaps also painful (ha-ha) blog.. ..Stay tuned.

Comments

[Zim]

Hi Tomi,
I'm not in the comms business but have been reading this blog quite avidly for a while now. On the phone subscriptions - I'm carrying 3 mobile phones with me right now and am really finding it a pain, and frankly wish that I could move back towards a single phone - perhaps, with different numbers linked to a single SIM card? Anyway, just a thought, and thanks for always providing illuminating thoughts and insights into the past, present, and future of the 7th medium!

[Tomi Ahonen]

Hi Zim

Great comment, thank you! I've been pushing that idea for the handset makers and the mobile operators for several years now. It is an "obvious" need that many have. There is a very poor partial solution for that in many markets, by which one mobile operator lets you have several phone numbers on one SIM card. But for most consumers, that is not the point of having multiple subscriptions, they typically have network needs ie different pricing plans, family plans, network coverage, an employer-provided phone, etc. So this solution is not really solving much of the need.

The big handset makers would like this, but their big mobile operator/carrier customers will not generally believe in it - they tend to believe that this would both promote churn and disloyalty, and offer too easy a way for customers to switch amongst the networks. Even more so, in all the countries where handsets are subsidised, the operators/carriers feel it is unfair, for operator A to give the customer an expensive phone, which then is too easily used by operator B who didn't supply a handset.

But like you say, I do think this is a long term likely scenario. We see some smaller manufacturers in China already providing this functionality. They are used for example by those who travel frequently, so they keep their primary (Chinese) mobile operator/carrier SIM card in the primary slot underneath the battery, and then if they go to Singapore, they stick a local pre-paid SIM card into the second slot, or in Hong Kong, another local SIM card for there, and so forth.

I do believe it will be coming, but as the big operators/carriers are hesitant (one could say strongly against it, ha-ha), expect this to take several years still...

Thanks for writing

Tomi Ahonen :-)