With over 20 years of experience in the telecom and Information Technology industry, B Sekhar Rao has set-up his own venture – JunoTele. The start-up is aimed at tapping business opportunities offered by mobile-based payments segment.

In an interview with tele.net.in, Sekhar Rao, chief executive officer, JunoTele talks about potential for real-time charging solutions in the Indian telecom market, challenges facing his venture and the way forward.

Excerpts...

What motivated you to launch your own start-up JunoTele?

The telecom industry is undergoing rapid changes. The technology in this industry has leapfrogged. With an eye on boosting revenues, service providers are offering users new and innovative services. With the introduction of multiple charges, top-up offers and value added services, tracking users and subsequently billing them for specific service and duration has become more complex.

In such a scenario, it becomes imperative for the operators to adopt instant billing solutions. JunoTele facilitates instant mobile payments with its patent pending real-time charging solution.

What is the potential for real-time payment solutions in India?

India continues to be predominately a voice-based market. So, far operators have been able to utilise 30 per cent of their network but they have not been able to fully uilise and monetise the network. With increasing uptake of data services, operators face the challenge of monetising these services.

Consumers have short attention span and tend to move from one media platform to another within a few seconds. For example, a Facebook user is most likely to move away from the website within eight to 10 seconds. In such a scenario, it becomes necessary for the operator to track this user and undertake instant billing. Real-time-based payment platforms help players handle large volume of transactions and undertake time-based charging. This in turn, helps operators keep track of user behaviour and maximise their revenues through instant billing.

What are the advantages offered by JunoTele’s real-time charging solution?

The company’s real-time charging solution is platform, device and technology agnostic. Therefore, it can be deployed across networks and supports multiple technologies. In a multiple device scenario, telecom industry requires a solution that can track and process a large number of transactions. Our real time-charging solution has been developed using signaling technology, which is the fastest mode of communication. The solution is capable of live discovery i.e. tracking a transaction as it happens. The solution eliminates high latency inherent in the traditional internet-protocol and application programming interface-based billing systems.

Further, the real-time charging solution eliminates the need for a user to opt for a subscription-based service. The solution paves way for proportionate billing of a particular service being used by a user be it audio, video, streaming or multimedia. The solution allows operators to offer services to users on-demand as and when they need it.

What is the role of real-time payment solution in enhancing business opportunities for over-the-top (OTT) players?

JunoTele’s real-time payment solution offers new revenue streams for OTT players as it paves the way for greater collaboration with the operators. Today, players can no longer survive either on advertising or subscription revenues alone. By and large OTT players are operating in a polarised environment, they have innovative, disruptive services but do not have a business model to charge a premium for these services. Thus, there is a need for a greater collaboration between OTT players and service providers to unlock the value presented by growing market data and VAS services.

What are the company’s future plans in India?

We are currently in talks with leading Indian service providers and educating and convincing them regarding the benefits of adopting JunoTele’s real-time payment solution. One of the key challenges is to assure players about the potential benefits of deploying real-time payment solution.

The company is focusing on operators in the tier II markets as they are more agile and open to experimenting in their bid to explore alternative streams of revenue.