Tarifica Mobile Database Alert Service

Tarifica’s Mobile Database now provides customizable alerts that notify subscribers of changes in mobile plans and offers. Instead of having to search through press releases, competitors' websites and advertisements, the Tarifica Mobile Database will instantly alert users whenever a plan with specified features has been added, updated or removed from the database.




Database subscribers can build personalized alerts tailored to their needs and interests based on dozens of distinct plan and offer characteristics.

 Examples include:
¨ New competitive promotions including seasonal specials
¨ Changes to the price of a selected device (such as the iPhone 6 Plus)
¨ Notifications when plans are no longer available
¨ Advisories on the launch of new value added plan partnerships (for example, Netflix or Spotify)
¨ Updates to international and roaming rates to/for selected countries
¨ Changes in service allowances expected to follow network enhancements


Database Example:

The Newsfeed

In addition to receiving email alerts of critical plan changes, this information will also be stored and presented in the subscriber's Newsfeed. This feature displays all of the user's Alerts by category. By selecting an Alert, the subscriber will be able to view every affected plan with indicators for newly added plans, existing plans that were modified and plans that were removed. Subscribers can use this feature to track every development in their market at a high level or leverage it to focus on changes to a single feature or series of plans. Users can also select any of the plans and immediately view every associated rate, feature, service and device.

The Newsfeed Features

¨ Clear indication of new, modified and removed items
¨ Alerts are categorized and listed separately for easy viewing
¨ Each Alert shows the number of notifications received
¨ Alerts can be viewed or hidden with a single click
¨ Date of Alert and the impacted plan names are clearly displayed
¨ All plan details are available by selecting “View Details” (sample shown on the next page)

Database Example:

View Details Display

¨ This view displays all of a plan's rates, included services, devices and associated features
¨ Modified plans are shown in side-by-side format with changes noted via a yellow dot on the left side of the screen, making it easy for users to see the evolution of the market


Database Example:

The Mobile Database

The Tarifica Mobile Database tracks every plan, offer and bundle from every major mobile operator in 66 countries around the world. For each consumer and business plan, the database tracks and displays every rate, included feature and restriction. This information provides subscribers with three critical services.

First, many subscribers rely on the Tarifica Mobile Database to monitor their rivals and the competitive environment in their market. Since the database tracks every mobile plan and displays this information in a clear and standardized fashion, it can free up the hundreds of hours of staff time that were previously invested in collecting this information by combing through competitors' websites, press releases, news articles, and other sources. With the Tarifica Mobile Database, subscribers can simply log on and know that they have comprehensive, up-to-date information at their fingertips.

Second, the Tarifica Mobile Database facilitates deeper and broader analyses of the mobile marketplace, both within a single country and across national boundaries than is possible with other tools. Unlike Excel based solutions for data gathering, the Tarifica Mobile Database is a true relational database and includes tools for easy searching, sorting and graphing of the data on any number of service and pricing elements thus enabling users to complete market research projects that would otherwise have been too resource intensive to undertake. Now, with the alert service subscribers can save even more time by bypassing having to search the database for critical information. In short, the Tarifica Mobile Database is able to turn its wealth of data on mobile plans and prices into actionable and meaningful intelligence through its large array of features and easy-to-use tools.

Third, the database enables users to draw insights from mobile plans around the world. Subscribers can easily view pricing and promotional strategies of innovative new plans and services and compare these across markets. Users can quickly select the specific plans or data needed to rapidly create customized benchmark reports, download this information to Excel and manipulate it as needed, including having the luxury to perform any number of “What if” analyses.



The Tarifica Mobile Database features:

¨ Every plan, rate, bundle, feature and service from hundreds of mobile operators
¨ Easy searching and querying
¨ Ability to graph results and/or download to Excel
¨ Coverage of included devices and prices


Database Example:

Data Sourcing

Tarifica is a research, consulting and data analytics firm that has served mobile and fixed line operators, regulators and consultants for four decades. Throughout this time, our focus has been on tracking the evolution of the market including competitive strategies and potentially disruptive factors in global plans, offers and rates.

Tarifica employs a team of researchers who are constantly reviewing mobile operators' websites, telecom news articles and press releases, and discussing plans with sales representatives. Ultimately, they standardize this information and enter it into the Tarifica Mobile Database. Before new entries are accepted, all of the data must pass a thorough review from a senior researcher to ensure that it is up-to-date, accurate and clearly presented.

Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance. To learn more about Tarifica, please visit www.tarifica.com

Telus Loses Legal Challenge Over Spectrum Licenses

Canadian mobile operator Telus has lost a court battle in which it challenged the Canadian federal government’s policy on spectrum that was designated for the country’s smaller mobile operators. The Federal Court of Canada dismissed Telus’ complaint that the government changed its policy on the transfer of spectrum from new Canadian players to the country’s dominant mobile operators. The license terms for new entrants precluded the transfer or sale of the license to incumbents for a five-year period. However, as Telus is charging, a change in government policy now requires transfer of spectrum to have ministerial approval. The court deemed that the government’s original rules did not state or imply that after the five-year period expired, any operator could freely acquire the set-aside spectrum. Telus, which argued that it had based its bidding strategy in the 2008 auction on being able to purchase the set-aside airwaves, began legal proceedings in July 2013 after the government rejected its offer to acquire Mobilicity, one of Canada’s smaller operators.

As Canadian Federal Court Justice Roger Hughes handed down his ruling this week—and ordered Telus to pay the government’s court fees, as well—Canada’s industry minister, James Moore, said the following about the outcome: “Our policy has always been clear—we will not approve spectrum transfer requests that decrease competition in the wireless sector.” Despite the pro-competition stance that the industry minister, Canadian Competition Bureau and CRTC say they are taking, unless these ruling bodies make some audacious moves, Canada’s big three operators—Rogers Wireless, Bell Mobility and Telus—will continue to dominate the market and smaller players such as Mobilicity or Wind will not be able to gain any headway.

As we have written, the CRTC’s ban on exclusivity clauses, which it enacted several months ago, and its June specification that operators need to create roaming deals based on a formula that calculates caps for wholesale roaming rates, are attempts to rectify the market conditions for new entrants. However, the CRTC and the federal industry ministry need to do more to enforce lower-cost roaming access to established operators’ networks. Simply blocking a large operator from purchasing a small operator is, in our opinion, not enough. The present regulatory environment, lacking as it is in strong measures that will enable competition, is a stagnant one that will not help Mobilicity or any other secondary operator move forward.

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 or to speak with the research team: http://www.tarifica.com/contactus.aspx

Telus Makes Misleading Speed Claims

Following a hearing with the CRTC, Canada’s mobile regulator, on whether new regulations on the sale of wholesale mobile service would stimulate competition, MNO Telus issued a press release arguing against the regulations. The operator stated that Canada’s relatively high prices are merited and ultimately provide consumers with much better value. “Canadians enjoy wireless data speeds that are the second fastest in the world,” the release said, adding that Canada has “three times the average speeds offered in the U.S. and France, and nine times faster than the U.K.”

There was, however, a significant problem with the statistics that Telus cited, which was instantly flagged by Canadian media and industry watchdogs: They are based on the operator’s advertised maximum download speeds and not its real-world performance. As a warning against this type of usage, the OECD report from which Telus’ numbers were pulled stated, “Operators in some countries advertise faster speeds closer to the theoretical maximum which are rarely achieved in real usage.” As an example of how different these numbers can be, Akamai Technologies’ State of the Internet report for Q2 2014 states that Canada’s average download speeds were 7 Mbps compared with 6.1 Mbps in the U.K., not the nine times faster that Telus reported. 

We generally concur with Telus in terms of the broader argument that many of the European regulatory measures aimed at keeping costs down for consumers have inadvertently created a perverse set of incentives for operators in which maintaining current prices takes precedence over building next-generation networks. However, Telus’ tactics in this case have been almost comically poor. Due to MNOs’ large size and bureaucratic culture, many journalists and consumer advocacy groups are inclined to paint them as enemies of the consumer that consistently prefer “profits over people.” By manipulating the data in what appears to be the most translucent manner possible (there are multiple well-known and free sources for average download speed), Telus has validated all the fears of MNO cynics and moved popular opinion in the exact opposite direction to that which it intended. As this debate over competition continues in countries around the world, MNOs and their supporters would be well advised to not overreach in the way Telus just did. 

“Consumers tend to have little ability to evaluate network speeds. Most do not know how many megabits there are in a five-minute video. Instead of just listing theoretical maximum speeds, operators should differentiate their plans by describing speeds in practical and concrete terms, for example: ‘Now you can watch Game of Thrones anywhere; on our LTE network, 70 percent of videos stream with no lag.’ This strategy can help operators upsell consumers to higher-speed data packages and strengthen the brand’s association with reliable and fast data performance.”

Will Watts, Program Manager at Tarifica

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

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