Industry Watchdog CTIA Unleashes Third-Party Content Monitoring
The wireless industry’s new system for monitoring third-party content providers, described in the fall 2006 issue of Wireless Wave, is now up and running. This is good news for both consumers and for the wireless industry.
Third-party content providers are companies that deliver specialty content to mobile phone customers—everything from weather forecasts and daily horoscopes to mobile video and games—through agreements with various wireless carriers. Through CTIA—The Wireless Association® and the Mobile Marketing Association, the wireless industry has developed a set of best practices, which every content provider is expected to follow when advertising, selling, delivering, and billing for this content.
The Third Party Content Off-Portal Monitoring and Auditing Initiative, as it is officially known, will check for content providers’ compliance. “The importance of this initiative to consumers is that the industry is providing its own watchdog over the fulfillment and accuracy of content providers,” notes Mark DeSautels, CTIAs vice president, wireless Internet development. “This effort seeks to ensure that the content that subscribers receive from these providers, who are only loosely affiliated with the carriers, is indeed the content that the subscriber was expecting, that it performs in the manner expected and that it is charged for in the manner that the consumer expects to be charged.
“It’s a watchdog program on behalf of wireless subscribers, for the wireless carriers, who are seeking to broaden the range of companies who can distribute and offer wireless content but don’t want to do so indiscriminately.”
Monitoring company chosen for experience and tools
CTIA, which is overseeing the monitoring program, chose Telephia, a market research organization focused on the wireless market, to take on the actual auditing process. This was a natural fit for Telephia says David Petersen, the
company’s senior vice president.
“There are two sides to our business. One is understanding the wireless marketplace and the other is understanding what is driving the wireless marketplace,” he explains. Telephia surveys more than half a million people each
year to gather information about what consumers are doing with their wireless phones. “Another big segment of our business is understanding the consumer experience, which we do by monitoring and testing things like the quality of the various networks.
