Mobile Internet connectivity firm Tweakker says it has surpassed its first target milestone since launching a new over-the-air Application Programming Interface (API) service in May 2010.

As of 1 September, more than 500,000 people had used Tweakker’s API to connect their mobile phones to the internet, which Tweakker says has saved mobile operator customers an estimated $4.75m (£2.92m) in customer care calls in the process. The API also enables mobile users to successfully subscribe and use new mobile services on offer, thus generating more revenues for Tweakker’s content provider customers.

According to Tweakker, the mobile industry loses an estimated $10bn each year in lost revenues and increasing customer care costs. Every time a mobile customer calls for support, the company says, it slashes up to $10 off average revenues per user (ARPU), and with the increasing complexity that smartphones bring to the market, customer care costs can only increase. The cost of using Tweakker’s online API service is $0.50 per customer, so based on these figures, mobile network providers save $9.50 per customer care call by subscribing to Tweakker’s API service.
Tweakker’s API offers the mobile customers of MVNOs, service providers and web content providers instant access to its configuration engine at any time from any location. The API currently supports more than 10,000 phone model variations and 2,200 OTA-enabled phone model, and these figures are increasing each month as new phone models are launched.

The API also provides online mobile guides in more than 30 languages, and coverage now spans 114 countries and the networks of more than 350 mobile operators. All phones supported by Tweakker’s API service are tested and certified for OTA configuration in-house.

MVNOs, service providers and content providers buy access to Tweakker’s API, develop a web service interface and bolt it on to their websites for seamless customer care. As a result, says Tweakker, its customers provide a better customer care service compared with call centres at vastly reduced cost.

“The first 500,000 mobile-user milestone for Tweakker’s over-the-air connectivity service has been achieved in just a handful of months,” says Tweakker business manager, Dennis Juul Poulsen. “We confidently expect that figure to grow to more than 1m before year-end, as more mobile and content providers subscribe to our API, saving themselves millions of dollars in customer care costs as a direct result.”