joyn

BARCELONA, Spain--Two major trends in the wireless industry appear to be converging. On one hand, operators continue to struggle with over-the-top players like Google, Viber, Facebook Messenger and Skype cutting into their voice and messaging revenues. On the other hand, operators have quietly been inking deals with content providers in order to offer cheap or free access to specific services, a practice some have dubbed the toll-free data model. Now, it seems some companies are hoping toll-free data models can put wireless carriers back in the game and give them some leverage against the OTT tide.

BARCELONA, Spain--Viber CEO Talmon Marco said joyn--a rival messaging service being offered by some wireless carriers--will not be successful. He also said Viber is open to revenue-sharing deals with wireless carriers and he said the company recently signed its first carrier partnership with operator Axis in Indonesia.

The growing threat from over-the-top providers such as Netflix and YouTube has wireless operators on the defensive. Consumers are increasingly watching video content on their smartphones and tablets, rather than their TVs, and many are using services such as Netflix, YouTube and Hulu to access that content.

MetroPCS said its deployment of Rich Communication Services under the GSMA's joyn brand is humming along just fine. The comments are notable considering the technical difficulties Deutsche Telekom is experiencing in Germany that have forced the carrier to indefinitely delay launching joyn there.