Solutions
Bill Shock Management
Bill Shock Management
Overview
The rapid uptake in the consumption of mobile data services, coupled with the subscribers’ changing usage pattern and introduction of ‘per MegaByte’ pricing has led to the phenomenon of ‘Bill Shock’, where subscribers receive unexpectedly large bills for their service usage with no prior knowledge or warning of the scale of the charges, they may incur.
The extent of the problem has even led the European Commission to extend its current roaming cost reduction legislation to cover mobile data roaming charges and include bill shock management for data services in addition to traditional voice and text services. Under this legislation, service providers will be legally obliged to:
Volubill’s Bill Shock Management solution, based on its proven policy management and service control technology enables service providers to:
Figure 1 highlights the types of notifications and control provided by Volubill to subscribers to manage ‘Bill Shock’
FIGURE 1 - Bill Shock Management Notification and Self-care Samples
Ecosystem »
Benefits »
Solution Roadmap »
The rapid uptake in the consumption of mobile data services, coupled with the subscribers’ changing usage pattern and introduction of ‘per MegaByte’ pricing has led to the phenomenon of ‘Bill Shock’, where subscribers receive unexpectedly large bills for their service usage with no prior knowledge or warning of the scale of the charges, they may incur.
The extent of the problem has even led the European Commission to extend its current roaming cost reduction legislation to cover mobile data roaming charges and include bill shock management for data services in addition to traditional voice and text services. Under this legislation, service providers will be legally obliged to:
- Limit the wholesale cost of mobile data roaming to €0.8/MB, with further cuts in 2011.
- Inform a roaming subscriber of the cost of using data services on their network.
- Enable the subscriber to set a roaming spending limit every time he or she enters a new country.
- Automatically cut off the services to the subscriber when his or her usage charges have reached €50 (or equivalent), unless the subscriber has set up a higher spending limit.
Volubill’s Bill Shock Management solution, based on its proven policy management and service control technology enables service providers to:
- Fully comply with regulation and eliminate ‘Bill Shock’ by enforcing spending or credit limits in real-time by dynamically allowing and blocking access to data services for each subscriber based on his or her profile, spending limits and service usage.
- Maintain a rich real time dialogue with customers through mechanisms such as SMS/MMS, email and captive portals in order to keep them informed of data usage charges, current spend and remaining quota.
- Offer subscribers the ability to personalise and control their spending limits for data services on service level and to match their travel plan, budget using self care and mobile self care.
- Offer subscribers the ability to extend their quota if their spending limit is met, or redirect them to a top up page that enables them to switch over to an alternative payment method.
- Offer more targeted and personal service policies, instead of generic ‘per MB’ rates, that encourage data usage at home and abroad. This can be achieved by segmenting current data services by factors such as managed applications (e.g. M2M, VoIP, VoD), payment method, location, device type, network type and customer application preferences (e.g. On Demand performance for online gaming, Internet, VoIP and video conferencing etc.).
Figure 1 highlights the types of notifications and control provided by Volubill to subscribers to manage ‘Bill Shock’
FIGURE 1 - Bill Shock Management Notification and Self-care Samples
Ecosystem »
Benefits »
Solution Roadmap »
