PLANO, Texas-EDS announced it is helping GTE Wireless bring the convenience of online bill payments to its more than 7 million customers by providing interactive online billing as part of the GTE’s corporatewide e-commerce strategy.
Interactive Billing Services, based on EDS’ electronic billing offering, allows customers to view and pay their bills on the Web, as well as access the service through banks, Internet portals and bill consolidators CheckFree and TransPoint.
“In the telecommunications market, Web-based bill payment is a vital development toward more advanced customer-care solutions that transform the customer experience, giving the customers themselves the ability to choose-and ultimately to configure-their own voice and data services,” said Barton Taylor, senior analyst at Giotto Perspectives.
Killen & Associates, an electronic business analyst firm, estimates that in the next five years major billers will spend $31 billion to install and upgrade Internet-based customer-care systems to handle billing and payment demands of business and residential customers.
“In the Internet age, establishing and growing online relationships with customers is a strategic imperative, and online billing is a service we believe will bring additional value to our customers,” explained Tricha Diaz, assistant vice president of account management at GTE Wireless. “With the intense competition in the wireless industry, it also is important for us to be the first in our market with innovative new e-business services.”
In other news, EDS has launched a global roaming clearinghouse service for wireless communications providers to make international roaming more profitable for wireless service providers and less of a hassle for their subscribers.
According to EDS, the clearinghouse addresses the operational problems associated with international roaming by offering conversions and transmission of both U.S.-format and European-format call detail records, conversion of multiple currencies, clearing of international CDRs, reporting and intercarrier reconciliation, and the ability for carriers to re-rate and re-price fees according to roaming agreements with other carriers.
“Global service providers have stitched together a patchwork quilt of roaming agreements,” noted Jeffrey Kagan, an Atlanta-based telecommunications analyst. “But providing seamless service is more complex than just signing agreements. Managing the user’s data across multiple systems is a huge task. A global clearinghouse that would streamline that process makes a lot of sense in this wireless marketplace.”
EDS said it already has agreements with providers serving approximately 40 million mobile telephone users in 17 countries.
