Cheaper and better international roaming for Optus mobiles

By Stuart Corner
Friday, 30 March 2007 10:15

Your IT - Home IT

The Bridge Mobile Alliance of which Optus is a member has forged a deal with its European counterpart to enhance and cut the cost of international mobile roaming for individual and corporate customers of member operators.

The move is a counter to Vodafone which is able to exploit to varying degrees its full or part ownership of mobile networks in offer seamless services. It is also a counter, in the multinational corporate market, to BT which offers one-stop shop managed services for customer mobiles in different countries and on different networks.

The co-operation promises to provide more seamless roaming for individual users , and to provide multinational enterprise customers with global services and one-stop shopping capability across continents. FreeMove already offers a service known as FreeMove International Connect which offers predetermined tailored rates for employees' mobile calls. According to FreeMove, "we create a defined group of users and preset the call rates between members of these groups. This includes international direct dialling, mobile to mobile and mobile to defined number calls. It doesn't matter what network an employee is on or where they are in the world, the tailored prices still apply."

Lim Chuan Poh, chairman of the Bridge Mobile Alliance said: "It is our vision that an alliance cooperation between FreeMove and Bridge Mobile Alliance will create benefits to customers such as better quality of service when they roam, and getting access to more value added offers from the alliances. Enterprises with global offices could also benefit from the cooperation by joint offerings from the alliances. By leveraging the combined strengths of the alliances, we would have a unique position to better serve our customers and also our members."

The two companies say that in coming months they will "embark on defining the specific cooperation initiatives to be announced in due course."

Bridge Mobile Alliance is Asia Pacific's largest mobile alliance covering 10 markets and over 130 million customers. Its members are Airtel (India), CSL (Hong Kong), CTM (Macau), Globe Telecom (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), SingTel Mobile, Optus, SK Telecom (Korea), Taiwan Mobile and Telkomsel (Indonesia), as well as nine technology associate members. The alliance operates through a Singapore-incorporated joint venture company, Bridge Mobile Pte Ltd. It is one of three Asian regional mobile alliances but is the largest and most structured.

FreeMove members are Orange, TeliaSonera, TIM (Telecom Italia Group) and T-Mobile. They operate in 28 countries and have over 295 million customers. Cooperation between the two alliance will cover 38 countries and about 400 million customers across Europe, Americas and Asia.

The Vodafone Group, by comparison, has ownership interests in 25 countries across five continents and partner networks in a further 36 countries. At 31 December 2006, it had 198.6 million 'proportionate customers in its subsidiaries, joint ventures, affiliates and investments, and there were 600 million venture customers.