The world is shrinking. I am currently in the US and able to work as if I’m at my desk at the office. As well as that, I’m in the middle of an array of family celebrations spanning several continents. It’s really a case of “if it’s Tuesday, this must be New York”.
Phone call rates continue to trend down, but roaming rates are still exhorbitantly high. In many cases, the rates for roaming are not even published, but rather a function of mysterious inter-carrier settlement rates.
Vodafone Australia led the way a while back by introducing a system that offered not just deterministic roaming pricing, but also very competitive rates. They also included the notion of special roaming rates when roaming on a “preferred” Vodafone partner network. Vodafone are the biggest mobile carrier in the world.
Hutchinson/3 has now taken the next step by dropping the bar by bringing roaming rates for Australians down to a new level on their own “extended” network of carriers. They did the same within Europe just a few months ago.
It’s gratifying to see that these two mobile behemoths are doing more than just building up ownership of carriers in many countries – they are leveraging this to the benefit of their customers, and at the same time establishing the value in their respective global brands.
This was also posted at [Billing Bureau].