Acision Welcomes European Roaming Legislation

Mobile data company Acision has welcomed the European Commissions legislation designed to reduce the cost of roaming. 

Announced yesterday, the legislation including new caps on incoming and outgoing calls and a lowering of data charges. There are also rules to protect customers from bill shock. 

And Jonathan Pearson, proposition manager of real-time charging at Acision says these changes are a step in the right direction, and could increase revenue for mobile data operators. 

“This updated legislation provides operators with the opportunity to rebuild confidence in their brands by providing consumers with greater pricing transparency and control through the provision of spend limits and real-time notifications,” says Pearson. “Going one step further, it could even be a revenue opportunity for them, as Acisions research revealed that 42 per cent of consumers believe that having spend limits would encourage them to make greater use of mobile services while roaming, while 41 per cent would be happy to pay for real-time notifications.”

Pearson also says that operators could have a hand in improving customer willingness to use data roaming services. “Operators could further improve pricing transparency by offering bundles for a specific type of service, such as roaming, web browsing or video downloading,” he says. “This allows users to budget and can include real-time notifications about how much they are spending, when they are nearing their spend limit, as well as offering the opportunity for the user to top up their bundle.

“Were experiencing a shift in the communications paradigm, the catalyst of which is the move to an IP-based communications services environment. Operators are in a unique position to profit from IP services explosion by exploiting the assets at their disposal and combining real-time charging, policy management, data enforcement and intelligent optimisation to deliver the differentiated offers and personal quality of experience that consumers want.”