CTIA Highlights Mobile Payments and Banking Services
The biggest announcement by far at CTIA for the billing and payment space had to be AT&T’s announcement of its mobile banking initiatives with Wachovia, SunTrust and Regions Financial Corp. The banks will use Firethorn’s mobile banking and payments solution to enable customers to check balances and pay bills using their mobile device. In many situations they will leverage CheckFree technology fore online bill presentment.
What was especially enticing for these service providers was that Firethorn’s secure application can be downloaded easily without requiring changes to the handset. Downloading though is only a short term solution until customers receive handsets with the banking functions built in.
There also seemed to be a lot of buzz around a company called SNAPin Software. It offers mobile interaction management products, which are a series of self-care applications embedded directly into a subscriber’s cell phone. In February the company announced its first trial customer, Orange UK. At the CTIA show the company said it had signed its first U.S. customer, a tier 1 mobile operator known for its dedication to customer care.
All the sessions were great, and the show floor was crowded. As for the first day of keynotes, nothing more could be expected than a lot of cheerleading and hype about how much the industry cares so much about its customers, and how much everyone loves their cell phone.
OK, who doesn’t depend on their cell phone these days?
This week the Federal Communications Commission proposed separate fines of $100,000 against several telecom providers for violating rules regarding protection of customer proprietary network information (CPNI). The FCC determined that CTC Communications, Eastbrooke Cellular and Amp’d Mobile failed to provide a required annual certificate from a corporate executive certifying from personal knowledge that the company’s operating procedures comply with the commission’s rules for protecting and using CPNI.
CTIA Launches CSC Auditing and Monitoring Initiative
CTIA officially launched an industry-wide common short code (CSC) auditing and monitoring initiative to ensure that off-portal third-party content providers comply with the industry’s consumer best practices (CBP) and honor the terms and conditions under which wireless subscribers purchase mobile products and services.
“As the demand for third-party off-portal content skyrocketed, so too did the supply of content providers, some of whom were ill-prepared to properly serve their rapidly expanding client base,” said Steve Largent, CTIA’s president and CEO.
