Mobile roaming rates getting you down? New service offers mobile content as “awards” for roaming

Here’s a peculiar “solution” for the problem with mobile roaming rates. Three companies have gotten together to enable operators to offer rewards to their customers for roaming - which covers foreign users roaming on the home network, or home users roaming on a foreign network
So the basic idea is that roamers will earn points from their operators for roaming. These points can then be redeemed with TheFirstClub in return for mobile content including music, games and movies. This content doesn’t even need to be mobile - it can be a PC game downloaded straight to your desktop if you like.

Who are these three companies? TheFirstClub specialises in providing content in return for vouchers, or “ClubCoins” as it calls them. Travelling Connect is a CRM company that helps operators provide services to their customers no matter where they are worldwide. And The Licensing Agency will be providing the promotional content, which it does to publishers worldwide, be they mobile or not.

From the release:

Marcel Wientjen, Managing Director of Travelling Connect states: “Travelling Connect offers a unique inbound roaming loyalty program to mobile operators under the name “Roaming Awards”, and also a unique outbound roaming loyalty program to the mobile industry under the name “Mobile Travel Rewards”. We are pleased with the cooperation with TheFirstClub.com (TFC). This will strengthen the Roaming Awards and Mobile Travel Rewards Loyalty Programs. Mobile operators can now also give the leisure traveller the opportunity to earn and redeem valuable awards for goods such as music, games and soon mobile content and movies. The leisure traveller can even earn these goods with only a short telephone call, with a music title being offered for 10 minutes”.

Melissa Motmans, Sales and Operations Manager at The Licensing Agency, adds: “We are very proud of providing Travelling Connect with entertaining digital rewards, adding further value to its already excellent range of incentives. TheFirstClub.com has been designed to be easily integrated in any reward program and we are very excited by our partnership with Travelling Connect”.

What we think?

I’m sure the technical challenges in getting this service up and running were pretty staggering. But quite apart from that…. honestly, rather than getting random, free content that I wasn’t looking for in the first place, I would rather just get a better roaming rate from my operator. And I’m sure most operators know that as well.