Increased opportunities for cell phone users. Customers used to get information about available mobile con-tent only from their handsets or from their carriers’ Web sites or advertising. But now, with the permission of carriers, third-party providers are advertis-ing their content independently in mag-azines, on Web sites and on television. Consumers can order this content via their cell phones using Common Short Codes (four, five or six digit numbers) and text messages (SMS, or short message service).
“This is exciting for consumers, because they now have access to an array of mobile content on their wireless phones, but at the same but at the same time they have questions. After all, buying content for your phone in general and via text messaging in particular is something new,” says Rob Hyatt, Cingular’s Executive Director, Premium Content Distribution.
But if wireless customers experience prob-lems with the content or services they order, they often turn not to the content provider but to the carrier for assistance, since the car-rier is doing the billing. This has placed added burdens on carriers. “Our representatives are trained and have the tools to assist customers with questions in this area – we just consider it part of providing quality service,” says Hyatt.
Sometimes carriers end up refunding money to a customer after the carrier has already paid the content provider. This results in the operator losing “double money” on the transaction. Carriers take responsibility for these situations, because they want to keep their subscribers happy and because they do not want to jeopardize a market with so much potential for growth.
“This is a market that has gone from almost nothing a couple of years ago to hun-dreds of millions of dollars today, and it has the potential of going to multiple billions of dollars,” says Steven Spencer, Senior Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer at UPOC Networks, a mobile content aggregator and community application developer.
The vast majority of companies supplying this new content are ethical and willing to follow best business practices. Where the financial upside is significant, however, there is always a small minority who might try to take advantage of the consumer. Those few could give the whole industry a bad reputation.
The auditing process will allow carriers to identify those providers who are not in compliance with carrier and industry guidelines. That’s essential if content downloading is going to continue to grow. “We don’t want to have consumers say, ‘I tried that once, but I had a billing problem, or I didn’t get the con-tent I expected, so it’s not something I want to do again,’” says Hyatt. “We’re really think-ing about how to build this category over the long haul.”
