Mobile location from Roamware can reduce network costs

Mobile services provider Roamware makes it’s money by selling solutions directly to mobile operators – and today, it has announced two new products. Local Short Codes are a way for operators to tap into location-based and hyper local marketing, and Dynamic Call Rating gives operators a way to offer consumers better during the day.

What’s the story?

Roamware built it’s reputation around providing roaming solutions for operators (as you can tell from the name) – but neither of the products being released today have anything to do with roaming. Instead, they’re both centered around providing a better service for subscribers on the network. We’ll take a look at both solutions in turn.

Local Short Codes:

The idea behind this is incredibly simple. Rather than a business buying it’s own shortcode, instead it would register to be part of a Local Short Code (LSC). That LSC can be 3 – 5 digits long, and doesn’t point at a specific business. Instead, it routes a call through to the closest business that has registered with that LSC. So, for example, let’s say that the number “323″ has been attributed to “Cafes and Coffeeshops”. If you were to ring 323 on your phone, your network would detect your location and route that call to the closest cafe which has registered with 323.

The revenue potential for this service is obvious – it’s potentially a fantastic mobile marketing service for any business. It would also be cheap for the operator, as it’s based on capabilities they already have and doesn’t require any upgrades.

Dynamic Call Rating:

As much as I like the LSC idea, I prefer this one. It allows the operator to keep a check on exactly how many calls are being routed through different parts of it’s network during the day. The operator has to pay to keep the entire network running, but there will be times when little or no calls are being made in a certain area, where others will be clogged with peak time calls. The idea is that operators could offer real-time discounts to subscribers, to encourage them to make calls during off-peak hours. By gaining a clearer idea of exactly when and where peaks occur, the operator can offer callers incentives to wait until the rush is over. This would mean better overall service for the callers, and better overall use of the network infrastructure.

What we think?

On their own, neither of these deployments is world changing or earth shattering. But sometimes little difference are what can make an operator really distinguish themselves from the competition. Certain networks seem to agree, as Vodafone picked up Roamware’s Network Traffic Redirection earlier this year, allowing for cheaper roaming calls – and the operator bought it for resale to other operators.