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FCC regulations to curb bill shock may prove to have far less impact than operators worry it will, owing to the fact that an estimated 70% of roamers are business users who are not entirely price sensitive, according to Abraham Punnoose, a vice president of marketing and business development at services company, Roamware.

RCR Unplugged recently wrote about the proposed FCC regulations requiring mobile companies to notify customers when they were about to incur roaming charges or other higher-than-normal rates not covered by their monthly plans, which has caused an outcry from the CTIA, which represents major US operators.

Punnoose, however, feels the carriers have little to worry about, explaining that it would simply require operators to provide notification services to traveling customers on the data usage being incurred, helping them to manage their costs better, which while it may have some impact on the usage behavior of customers in the leisure segment, would hardly touch the enterprise segment, comprised of the heaviest roamers.

The only real challenge for operators if the regulations go through, says Punnoose, is really about implementing the type of notification services the FCC wants.

Unsurprisingly, Roamware believes it has the best product line for the job. The firm already holds an estimated 60% market share of the voice and data roaming segments for GSM, 3G and CDMA technology platforms with offerings deployed across 140 countries with over 390 mobile operator networks, so it believes it is up to the task.

Headquartered in San Jose, CA, with key regional offices in Amman, Brussels, Bangalore, Dublin, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Mumbai, New Delhi and Singapore, the firm’s main beat is in helping its operator clients incorporate value added services which will help increase customer loyalty and stickiness – and the FCC may just be handing Roamware yet another Value-Add on a silver platter.

One of the services Roamware is already offering its carrier customers as a potential value-add is an app called Seamless Call Back which apparently does not impact user experience or traditional USSD call back solutions while enabling operators to let customers convert outgoing calls into incoming calls, thereby reducing roaming costs.

The firm is also touting its Smart Call Routing app which it claims could reduce the wholesale costs of international calls made in the roaming environment by converting these calls to local calls and transporting them via an alternate international carrier service, which is usually priced at a lower cost within roaming tariffs and passes the benefits of reduced usage costs on to end consumers.

If operators are not interested in saving their customers a few bucks on calls made abroad, they’ll still need to notify them, not only for data usage, but also for voice and SMS. Not to fear, Roamware has something in its storeroom for that too, notably, its Roaming Service Controller which provides notifications and automatic service deactivation based on customer specified thresholds.

These tools, says Punnoose “are cost management solutions for enterprises, which they could demand from their carrier service providers.” For carriers, Punnoose admits the services require some cost and integration efforts, but he believes the benefits of pricing and usage transparency would result in increased customer satisfaction and the benefits arising from elimination of potential disputes and bad debts.

“Reduction in customer churn from such huge roaming bills also far outweighs the cost and integration efforts associated with such applications,” he asserted.

Until such measures are in place, however, Punnoose says there are still ways consumers can protect themselves from “bill shock” while traveling.

Some simple methods he recommends include:

·         Turning off Data Services: A data-intensive device such as the iPhone will quickly rack up roaming charges from its numerous applications, so turn off unnecessary data services while roaming to save money.

·         Requesting Unlimited Data Packages for E-mails: Enterprise customers requiring continuous access to e-mail while on the move should always request an unlimited data package for e-mails, which could effectively cap roaming data usage.

·         Incoming Calls Are Cheapest: Incoming calls are always less expensive than outgoing calls, as most networks do not charge airtime on incoming calls except for the roaming call forwarding leg being delivered from the home network.

·         Use Chat Applications: Devices such as the BlackBerry have chat-like applications which are bundled into email packages and can be used to communicate with friends, colleagues and family to save on communication costs.

·         Send E-mails: E-mails are always cheaper than SMS text messages, especially if the user has an unlimited e-mail package.

·         Keep Calls Short: Avoid extensive calls while roaming and try and use fixed line or VoIP for calls if possible. Plan conference calls to occur at a hotel or a location that provides free internet or fixed line phones.

·         Manually Select a Roaming Network: Customers using data services while roaming for e-mail without the benefit of an unlimited package should manually select a network to avoid being charged for data charges as the phone switches networks. This could cause some disruption if the coverage provided by the selected network is patchy.

a.     For example, in a roaming environment, users are typically charged between 7 and 10 dollars per 1 MB of data, so if a customer receives 300 KB of e-mails using a particular network, he / she technically has another 700 KB of data left to ensure staying at the minimum charge of 7-10 dollars per MB. However, if the device switches networks while on automatic select mode, any additional data sent or received could automatically starts over at zero, which could trigger another charge of 7-10 dollars per MB, even though the customer technically used less than 1 MB total.