Worldwide Telecommunication Developments

Asia/Pacific

Philippines mobile operator Sun Cellular has deployed SunSagot, its new SMS-based customer service portal. With this service, users will receive up-to-date information on Sun Cellular’s products and services. Customer queries can also be posed to the operator through SunSagot and will receive responses within 5 to 30 seconds. Subscribers can access SunSagot free of charge by sending an SMS to a designated short number.

Europe

U.K. mobile operator EE is introducing Priority Answer service, which will allow subscribers to jump to the front of the line when calling its customer service center. Users who accept a one-off fee of £0.50 (US $0.83) that they are told about through an automatic greeting are put straight through to an operator. As EE expected, its subscribers are not happy with its decision to launch this service, but the operator says Priority Answer will improve its customer service operations nonetheless.

Latin America

Tigo Paraguay has announced that it saw a 70 percent increase over the last eight months in the number of customers who access data. According to a report the growth in the number of data subscribers to 1.7 million is due to the operator offering free access to Facebook. In December 2013 Tigo and Facebook launched a promotion called “Con Tigo Smart,” through which Tigo customers could access their Facebook accounts from their mobile phones.

Middle East/Africa

BlackBerry recently announced that it is partnering with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of United Arab Emirates to support the country’s mGovernment initiative. The initiative is part of a broader national effort to reshape the UAE government from an eGovernment to an mGovernment. BlackBerry will be providing support and expertise to help the TRA establish a Mobile Center of Excellence, including an application lab that will be dedicated to verifying the quality and security of mGovernment mobile apps.

North America

Canadian mobile operator Telus has partnered with Syniverse, a global transaction processing solution provider, to enable the operators’ subscribers to securely make payments while traveling. The technology, which is powered by the Syniverse Mobile Intelligence Portal and MasterCard, will use customers’ mobile characteristics such as their current geographic location and payment preferences to confirm that cardholders’ mobile devices are actually in the location where the purchase is taking place.

 The above item appeared in a recent issue of The Tarifica Alert, a weekly resource that analyzes noteworthy developments in the telecoms industry from around the world. To access all of the latest articles and issues:  http://www.tarifica.com/TarificaAlert.aspx