Billing: Combat Mobile Content Aggregation Aggravation

Several years ago, the telecom industry saw the first wave of headaches related to content billing. Back then, people placing orders over the Web or their phones often encountered recurring or even fraudulent charges they hadn’t expected. That problem has taken on a new form – take the recent lawsuit against mobile publishing firm Cellfish as just one example – and the culprit now, says one billing analyst, is mobile content.

As mobility overshadows fixed working and entertainment spaces, so too are certain companies able to charge mobile users in ways they don’t anticipate. Take, for instance, a ringtone download. When your child watches Nickelodeon, watch out for those commercials advertising cool ringtones. Read the fine print and you’ll see the charge comes out to around $10 ... per month. So few people realize that what they thought was a one-time purchase actually is a recurring hit. Then, when the charges appear on the cell phone bill, subscribes get frantic. They call the service provider and demand a fix but here’s the catch: Those costs often are imposed by third parties that service providers don’t control or really even profit from.

Not only does this lead to unhappy customers, it continues to make telecom look bad.

So what can service providers do to minimize unclear or even fraudulent charges on their subscribers’ bills? More to the point, how can operators make the money off mobile content, instead of letting aggregators use them as dumb pipes to make all the dough? Shira Levine, directing analyst of next-gen OSS and policy at Infonetics Research Inc., has some thoughts on the matter. Click here or the source link below to read the edited transcript of Levine’s conversation with B/OSS Business & Regulatory Editor Kelly Teal.

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