Use Case 2: A second example would be a case where a mobile user consumes mobile and web-based services, involving mobile and fixed network infrastructures: While being at home, a mobile subscriber uses the laptop, surfing the internet via his residential DSL service and accesses his mobile network operator portal to pay his mobile account service bill. To do so, he is using his credit card, having pre-authorization on file. Next, he adds a new ringtone to his mobile subscription and then accesses an on-line movie portal and purchases a movie. This transaction is charged to his (not pre-authorized) credit card. The users benefit in this example would be the single sign-on with his fixed and mobile network operator as well as the ability to use credentials from his fixed network operator to authenticate to his mobile service account. The content purchase charges from the external movie portal are debited to his credit card account, without the need to sign-on a second time.

Competitors for the Identity Provider Role

Even though there are not many studies about Identity Management based services and related potential revenue available, research suggests that network operators must offer Identity Management based services to prevent from loosing their customer bases to competition from Web 2.0 companies, as these operators have started to offer data, voice and sporadically even mobile access services to their portals, bypassing TelCos completely.  

TeleCompetition Group have released in 2007 a study which projects that annual network operator revenue loss to Web 2.0 operators could be more than $1 trillion over the next eight years. This study was based on the assumption that broadband subscribers have relationships with Web 2.0 companies and assumes too, that these subscribers would discard TelCos for all services. 

Web 2.0 service providers offering online communities, free email services, and search sites that are often the consumer's first destination on the Internet. The fact they have offered single sign-on for sites linked to their portals for several years and given those service providers know enough about their customers to guarantee for their identities when doing business with web content providers makes Web 2.0 service providers severe competitors for TelCos in the identity provider role.