Kar-Tel Offers Carrier Billing for Road Tolls

Mobile operator Kar-Tel, working under the Beeline Kazakhstan brand, has introduced to carrier billing for road tolls for its subscribers, who can pay these fees from their mobile balance. The option is available on all toll roads across Kazakhstan. The option is available for the operator’s prepaid users, using the USSD menu.

We have seen carrier billing arrangements of various kinds, but they generally have to do with goods or services that are consumed directly through the mobile device, such as apps, games, music or other entertainment products. In this case, customers are being offered the opportunity to pay a governmental fee via carrier billing. Since there is no inherent connection between the phone and the tolls, this arrangement has more of the feeling of mobile money than carrier billing.

In a sense, the offering seems most appropriate for a developing economy in which a sizable number of people do not have credit cards, debit cards or even bank accounts. Conducting a wide variety of everyday financial tasks through one’s phone bill or mobile balance is typical of “mobile-first” markets that are underbanked. One tends to assume that car ownership among the unbanked would be low. However, if Kar-Tel’s user base combines car ownership with a need or desire to pay for driving expenses through their phone balances, this offering could be a success. In this case, carrier billing could be perceived simply as a matter of convenience rather than necessity.   

Tarifica’s products and services are powered by large-scale data from the global telecom industry and a deep level of expertise gained from our singular focus. We leverage these core attributes to help our clients understand their markets and answer their most challenging questions. Our team of analysts, software engineers and data scientists deliver real-time dynamic solutions for the telecom industry. Our software and state of the art data extraction techniques enable our clients to make smart decisions in real-time based on insightful, actionable data. 

We are the telecom plan & pricing experts.

To learn more about Tarifica, please visit www.tarifica.com