Airtel Africa is to deploy a range of services from Belgian wholesale mobile carrier services provider BICS across 17 countries in order to improve revenues from roaming.
BICS’ services will allow Airtel to monitor inbound and outbound roaming traffic in real time.
According to a BICS statement Airtel will now also be able to “monetise international SMS traffic with its hosted SMS firewall, and increase their overall roaming footprint with its Roaming Hub and Roamfast service”.
“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. The platform also enables us to identify and resolve performance issues in real time to provide higher service levels to our customers,” said André Beyers, chief marketing officer (CMO) of Airtel Africa.
Customers are protected with BICS’ bill shock prevention feature that allows Airtel to avoid unexpected high data costs on a subscriber’s bill.
“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,” BICS said.
“The rollout of our new Bill Shock and Campaign Management value-added service will help improve customer satisfaction and loyalty,” said Clémentine Fournier, regional vice president of BICS Africa.
