Asian Mobile Operators Create Mobility Initiative 

07 April 2003 - Five leading mobile operators in the region announced that they have teamed up to form the Asia Mobility Initiative (AMI), Asia’s first initiative which aims to enhance mobile users’ experience, especially in the area of mobile data.

The five operators involved are CSL (Hong Kong), Maxis (Malaysia), MobileOne (Singapore), Smart (Philippines), and Telstra (Australia), with a combined subscriber base of 20 million.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for AMI underlines its aims - collaboration to provide subscribers with easier access and enhanced experience in mobile data services by providing them with the same standards of seamless and reliable data communications that they currently enjoy today with voice calls.

This is to be achieved by ensuring content sharing, inter-operability and cooperation on new platforms and devices. Customers of each operator will benefit as the AMI members will also share their best practises.

AMI has taken the first step to provide subscribers with joint services by commencing to link existing portals and by beginning to share existing premium content - bringing an entire new range of games, other entertainment and information to a wider market. AMI members will enjoy the benefits of this initiative in terms of improved speed to market of new products, sharing of product development experience and development costs.

AMI has also already begun to put in place a number of inter-network services designed to improve subscribers’ experience as they travel abroad. Services to be available when subscribers roam on AMI member networks include the ability to use GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) services, send MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services) pictures and CLI (Caller Line Identification), which provides the caller’s number to identify international callers. With further developments in the pipeline, customers will increasingly enjoy access to local information and content when abroad.

These developments allow AMI to focus on improving services and widening subscriber choice without affecting its members’ existing supplier and roaming arrangements.

AMI is not an exclusive group. Each member is free to both maintain and enter into new bilateral arrangements with other operators and third parties where necessary. AMI will also be considering enlargement once the core group of five operators has established its platforms and services. Participation from other operators will enable subscribers to experience a more consistent level of services and experience as they travel abroad.