Digicel's identity crisis, explained BiP by BiP

Digicel wanted to talk about BiP, its absurdly named communications tool, but what I kept hearing was a company that knew what it was, knew it needed to become something else, and wasn't sure how it would get there.

There was definitely a lot to say about BiP itself. The app, created by Turkcell and championed enthusiastically by Digicel, has acquired 53 million users globally since it was introduced in 2013.

Digicel's gusto might have worked against the app's adoption. I, for one, didn't understand that BiP is available for everyone, on the same terms as any messaging app.

Digicel reports accelerated adoption in January, with 20,000 users downloading BiP and 22,000 actively using the app.

"Since January, the trend has been an increase in users by 1,500 per day," said Cilicia Albert, Digicel's digital product manager.

That increase lags the surges in the use of Signal and Telegram after Facebook introduced changes in its privacy policy in January. Digicel zero-rates BiP for text for all its customers. Prime bundle users on the network can also make free video and voice calls.

But the jump from OTT nemesis to OTT provider is a particularly difficult chasm to cross. BiP marks a significant overturning of Digicel's previous positions on over-the-top (OTT) services, which the company vigorously campaigned against as recently as 2017. The company banned "unlicensed" VOIP apps on its network in 2014 (http://ow.ly/Wuct50DvQOY).

Albert emphasised the value of BiP's private channels as an alternative to WhatsApp chats.

"Information is prioritised within the group as a one-way communication, with administrator oversight of who is seeing messages," Albert explained.

User contact information is hidden by default, and that's been a selling point in Digicel's conversations with schools about how the app can be used for sharing information, with an emphasis on user privacy, particularly for teachers on the platform.

To its credit, DigicelTT eats the chow it serves, and maintains a private BiP channel for updates and team chats, information-sharing and disappearing messages that's used by its management and employees.

The Discover function in BiP is particularly intriguing, offering up channels for content to users of the platform. It's here that BiP shows most fully its pedigree as a messaging app with ambitions of becoming a content platform.

The catch is that BiP is caught in the fax-machine gyre. To be more useful, the software needs more users, but users are most likely to show up to engage with abundant content or their peers. When I signed up with the platform, the app scanned my contact list and found exactly two people on BiP, and one of them is Colin Greaves, the company's PR lead. Channels are also spottily populated.

To move from this stalled position, Digicel may need to become a content commissioner/creator and that's some distance from its beginnings as a telecommunications provider.

The company has been aggressive about describing itself as a "digital operator," but it must now define what that means.

It's already flirting with media through Loop and Sports Max and content delivery with a growing library of on-demand entertainment. GoLoud, a recently launched podcast channel, added 10,000 users.

"We are the only telco in the market that made these bold moves to create a digital ecosystem," Greaves said. There's a possibility that a Digicel in 2030 that follows this initiative to its logical conclusion will look a lot more like a blend of Twitter and Netflix than a vendor of call minutes.

Does it have the grit and the finances to get there?

Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. An expanded version of this column can be found there.