MACH to Provide Solution to Carriers to Alleviate Consumer Fears of Bill Shock

MACH has released a Bill Shock Prevention solution designed to encourage more data roaming while protecting consumers from exorbitant mobile phone bills. The Luxembourg-based company provides numerous services to businesses, including helping telecommunications providers monetize data services and reduce fraud.

According to research that MACH conducted with YouGov, 58 percent of mobile device users switch off 3G functionality whenever they travel outside their carrier's coverage area. This behavior comes from the fear of getting stuck with a huge phone bill.

As a result, carriers have missed out on revenue streams from roaming, potentially as much as $900 million globally. Reducing consumer fears of bill shock will make this lost revenue stream available.

Solving the problem means allowing customers the ability to track their data usage in real time, according to MACH's Guy Reiffer, vice president of Marketing and Partnerships; “In order to remove the fear of bill shock and increase confidence in and uptake of data roaming, mobile network operators require granular, real-time insight into data usage."

Bill Shock Prevention operates within MACH's M Serve cloud of mobile data monetization services. It monitors data roaming in real time and issues an alert via SMS when a predefined threshold is reached.

Consumers can also check their data usage anytime, and in some situations, carriers can block data usage after certain levels are reached.

All these features would protect consumers from bill shock caused by unchecked data roaming.

Data Optimization is another cost-saving data roaming solution provided within the M-Serve portfolio. By using this service, MVNOs and mobile network operators save money on the cost of providing data roaming to their customers.

These operators will also have the ability to offer more choices in service and cost-controlling to their customers.

MACH's Bill Shock Prevention is a solution that is long overdue in the mobile phone service industry. It allows customers the chance to contain their costs and take advantage of 3G technology when traveling.

By addressing customer concerns about knowing their data usage as it changes, carriers will be able to tap into revenue streams that had previously been shut off by a marketplace afraid of bill shock.