By Editor on October 15, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Sprint Nextel Corp will reward customers loyal to its Boost Mobile prepaid brand by lowering their bills every six months.
According to Bob Stohrer, Sprint’s prepaid marketing chief, the carrier will knock US$5 off the US$50 monthly price of its unlimited talk, text and Web plan after every six months of on- time payments, to drop the bill to as low as $35. It’s just as important to reward the customers and get them to stay around as it is to acquire new customers.
According to Charles Golvin, a Forrester Research Inc. analyst, the loyalty program is the first of its kind for prepaid mobile plans in the U.S. Sprint is seeking to retain Boost customers, who tend to leave in greater numbers than the carrier’s other prepaid brand, Virgin Mobile.
According to Stohrer, boost customers who lower their bills through the program, known as Monthly Unlimited with Shrinkage, will remain at that pricing indefinitely. Users of Research In Motion Ltd. BlackBerry’s can drop their US$60 monthly bill to as low as US$45, under the program.
According to Golvin, this is the form of program that really means something to prepaid customers who tend to make their choices based on price. But it does come with some risk because customers who will switch for price will leave for price too.
Filed under Mobile ·
Tagged with Bills, Blackberry, Mobile, Monthly Unlimited with Shrinkage, Prepaid Wireless, RIM, Sprint, Text, U.S, unlimited talk, Virgin Mobile, Web plan
By Editor on November 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Nokia is attempting to create a multi-bank, multi-operator and multi-device collaboration on
mobile banking.
Nokia’s mobile banking and payment service is expected to be commercially available in its first market in Q1 2010, though no location details have been revealed yet.
According to Teppo Paavola, vice president, GM mobile
financial services, Nokia cannot reveal any details until a banking partner is confirmed. It is learnt that the service requires a banking license before it can be launched.
Nokia said its target is to have 300 million active users of its services by the end of 2011; the number is expected to be 80 million by the end of 2009.
Paavola said the service will enable un-banked people in emerging markets to transfer money, top up prepaid
mobile services, pay bills, carry out online transactions, and pay merchants.
Global
mobile payments market is expected to be worth €18 billion by 2014 – €12 billion from emerging markets and €6 billion from developed markets.
Approaches to mobile banking so far have lacked scale and have not worked across operators and across banks.
Nokia therefore plans to drive the collaboration on an open financial ecosystem, with Nokia Money at its core. Paavola added that it has taken a long time to get all the players together, from banks through to
mobile operators.
The Nokia Money application will not only be pre-loaded but could be sideloaded, or downloaded later.
Nokia will also be able to provide the physical distribution channel that is critical for the service to work. For example, Nokia handset sellers can be turned into Nokia Money agents, providing the devices, the application, and the ability to handle cash.
Nokia is attempting to create a multi-bank, multi-operator and multi-device collaboration on mobile banking, a service dubbed Nokia Money.
Nokia’s mobile banking and payment service is expected to be commercially available in its first market in Q1 2010, though no location details have been revealed yet.
According to Teppo Paavola, vice president, GM mobile financial services, Nokia cannot reveal any details until a banking partner is confirmed. It is learnt that the service requires a banking license before it can be launched.
Nokia said its target is to have 300 million active users of its services by the end of 2011.
Paavola said the service will enable un-banked people in emerging markets to transfer money, top up prepaid mobile services, pay bills, carry out online transactions, and pay merchants.
Global mobile payments market is expected to be worth €18 billion by 2014 – €12 billion from emerging markets and €6 billion from developed markets.
Approaches to mobile banking so far have lacked scale and have not worked across operators and across banks. Nokia therefore plans to drive the collaboration on an open financial ecosystem, with Nokia Money at its core.
The Nokia Money application will not only be pre-loaded but could be sideloaded, or downloaded later.
Nokia will also be able to provide the physical distribution channel that is critical for the service to work. For example, Nokia handset sellers can be turned into Nokia Money agents, providing the devices, the application, and the ability to handle cash.
Filed under Mobile ·
Tagged with Bills, Ecosystem, Emerging Market, Emerging Markets, handset, M-Banking, mBanking, Mobile Banking, Mobile Financial Services, mobile operator, Mobile Operators, Mobile payment, Mobile Payments, Mobile Service, Nokia, Nokia Money, payment Service, Prepaid Mobile, Prepaid Mobile Service, TransACT, Transactions
By Editor on August 15, 2006 · Leave a Comment
BIG price cuts could be on the way for mobile phone customers.
The telecoms watchdog, Ofcom, has ordered four more years of cuts on calls and said it will investigate text messaging charges.
Customers could see parts of their mobile bills cut by almost 10%, analysts said today.
Two years ago Ofcom ordered a 3% cut in the charges mobile operators make for calls to someone on another network-or those to landlines – so-called termination charges.
Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile,
Orange
and 3, passed on some, but not all, of the cuts to consumers. Charges dropped between 13 and 14%.
Today the watchdog ordered further cuts in prices – of up to 19% – and said they will also apply to the new third generation of mobile phones and should last until March 2011. For
Orange
and T-Mobile this means the termination charge will have to drop from 6.31p per minute to around 5.3p. Vodafone and O2 have been told to cut their charges from 5.63p to the same 5.3p.
Ofcom also launched an inquiry into the multi-billion text messaging market.
It said that it would look at how the mobile networks charge each other and the likes of BT for sending their customers’ messages to other networks.
UK
customers spent £2.1bn on texts last year and it now makes up around a fifth of the mobile networks’ annual revenues
Britons send an over 85 million text messages a day and on average send 28 texts a week.
For basic pay as you go tariffs, Vodafone charges 30p a minute for calls and 12p for texts.
Orange
is 40p/10p; T-Mobile 12p/10p; 02 35p/12p; Virgin Mobile 35p;10p.
Source- http://www.thisismoney.co.uk
Technorati : Mobile, O2, Ofcom, Operator, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone
Ice Rocket : Mobile, O2, Ofcom, Operator, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone
Filed under Mobile ·
Tagged with Annual Revenue, Basic Pay, Bills, Landline, Landlines, Mobile Bill, Mobile Bills, Mobile networks, Ofcom, Telecoms Watchdog, Termination Charges, Text Messages, Text Messaging, Texts, Virgin, Virgin Mobile, watchdog
