MEF Launches Smart Pipe Enablers Initiative

The Mobile Entertainment Forum has announced the launch of its global Smart Pipe Enablers Initiative to create an industry-wide framework that will lay the foundation for the next generation of mobile entertainment services. The MEF says the impact of the initiative will be more useful services, taken up faster by the industry.
Smart Pipe Enabler Services are to be provided by operators to third-party providers of content and services, enabling the delivery of a simpler, faster, more intuitive and more enjoyable user experience for the consumer. The MEF says initiative will make a major contribution to industry efforts in this area by devising a coherent, profitable and workable model for enabling services, and accelerating their uptake through education and promotion. The initiative has been founded by three full MEF members – the BBC, mBlox and Vodafone Group.
Enabler services offered by network operators will deliver many capabilities to content providers, including age verification, location, identity authentication, reliable phone applications, specific tariffs to consumers, and delivery with specific quality of service. Enabled by these services, content providers can offer the consumer a better user experience, a key objective for much of the MEFs work.
The Smart Pipe Enablers Initiative will create an industry-wide framework of business requirements for standards, complementing and supporting work in other bodies, such as the GSM Association, on the development of technical standards.
The MEF says it will form a working group with its members and will be liaising with regulators and other industry bodies to ensure the guidelines become the de facto reference point for enabling services across the globe. 
The MEF says the Enablers Initiative is fundamental to the future growth of the mobile entertainment industry, half of whose revenues come from off-portal services. It says the value of creating a coherent and co-ordinated approach to enablers is highlighted by the enabling services that operators offer today, such as bulk SMS, premium billing, short code rental and location look-ups.
The mobile industry is at the dawn of a new era with many new services becoming available, says MEF Global Chair Andrew Bud. As mobile content becomes richer and more sophisticated it is important for the industry to create common standards to enable the next phase of growth.  Some operators are doing this individually or in groups, evolving into smart pipes, but without a fully co-ordinated approach, the market is in danger of developing a fragmented landscape that will inhibit the take up of consumer services. The MEF Enablers Initiative will address this and lay the foundation for the next generation of mobile operator services for years to come.
The MEF Enablers Initiative is global in scope and the first phase will be the production of a white paper, due in June 2009.