Wholesale carrier service provider BICS, has said Airtel Africa will deploy its Data Roaming Booster Solution to enable it prevent bill shock and enhance campaign management across seventeen countries in a move that will see Airtel improve revenues from roaming and as well reduce subscriber charges.
Speaking about the deal Clémentine Fournier, Regional Vice President Africa, BICS, said: “As the leading signalling and GRX provider in the world and in Africa, all our services are deployed via a hosted model. This is particularly suited to the unique needs of the African market. Our range of value-added services will allow Airtel Africa’s operating companies to fix potential quality issues in real time, optimise roaming strategies, and monetise international SMS traffic, improving profitability quickly. The roll-out of our new Bill Shock and Campaign Management value-added service will help improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.”
Using BICS’ SMART Webvision, Airtel Africa will monitor inbound and outbound roaming traffic in real time, monetise international SMS traffic with its hosted SMS firewall, and increase their overall roaming footprint with its Roaming Hub and Roamfast service.
The SMART Webvision, BICS’ integrated quality monitoring, tracking & tracing and business intelligence tool for 2G, 3G and 4G, Airtel Africa can monitor all its roaming traffic based on different tariffs and technologies. The tool offers real-time information and figures on usage and quality of the roaming experience over 2G/3G/4G, allowing Airtel Africa to tailor offers to different types of subscribers and develop new revenue streams.
The bill shock prevention feature of BICS’ Data Roaming Booster Solution allows Airtel to avoid unexpected data roaming charges on subscriber’s bills. SMS messages alert subscribers before they reach preset thresholds, improving transparency and reducing disputed bills. The solution is expected to improve customer satisfaction levels and generate new revenue streams.
According to André Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer of Airtel Africa, “With this roaming value-added service we are able to achieve higher levels of visibility of the performance of our networks, which in turn allows us to improve the quality of our roaming offering.”
Airtel Africa is sure the BICS’ platform will help them identify and resolve performance issues in real time to provide higher service levels to their customers.