3GSM World Congress
Schlumberger Messaging Solutions today announced the launch of its latest product, M-Touch, which can increase mobile phone operators’ average revenue per user (ARPU) by up to five per cent. The application will alert subscribers via SMS whenever a call is missed because their phone is switched off, out of coverage or busy. This will result in increased call completion rates, which will increase voice traffic and ARPU in turn.
Once triggered by a missed call, the M-Touch application formats and generates a short message including the calling party’s telephone number, date and time of the call and the number of call attempts. The short message is then forwarded to the intended subscriber, either directly using the system’s built-in M-Touch functionality or by interfacing with a Short Message Service Center (SMSC) using Short Message Peer-to-Peer Protocol (SMPP).
M-Touch can be offered to all subscribers immediately upon deployment without the need for customers to upgrade to new phones. Customers who don’t currently subscribe to their operator’s voicemail service will benefit by being advised of all missed calls, while voicemail subscribers will find that M-Touch complements their existing service. For example, M-Touch can alert subscribers for all missed calls, including callers who did not leave a voicemail message – accounting for 50-70% of callers (Source: Frost & Sullivan). Roaming voicemail subscribers can perform call-backs based on M-Touch information even when they can’t access their voicemail from a roaming area.
Industry sources predict that advanced messaging solutions such as M-Touch can increase ARPU by 3-5%, with a return on investment within 3 to 8 months for operators. (Source: Frost & Sullivan)
“Schlumberger Messaging Solutions has leveraged its wealth of experience in the messaging industry to provide operators with M-Touch” commented Terry McCabe, Chief Technical Officer, Schlumberger Messaging Solutions. “M-Touch is designed to scale with an operator’s subscriber base growth and to support the most demanding capacity requirements.”
Schlumberger Messaging Solutions plans to develop the M-Touch service as a personalized service enabler, with features such as missed video calls for 3G networks and user-configurable options via www/WAP.