Roaming bills are one of the hidden costs of IT. They are particularly frustrating because they can be avoided, with policies, limits and reporting that get down to the network, user and device level. Large bills can cause quite a bit of mental anguish with an employee, and the aftershocks gave rise to these “7 Stages of a Roaming Charge,” loosely based on the 7 stages of grief:
1. Shock and Denial:
The user reacts to the bill with disbelief.
“Can you look at this mobile data card invoice – the roaming charges seem incredibly expensive, it can’t be correct.”
“I only checked my email when I was traveling international and didn’t know there would be roaming charges.”
“I was bored at the airport so I watched internet movies. It’s on the internet –I thought it should be free.”
2. Pain and Guilt
The miscreant has realized that they are at fault. They may bang their head on a nearby wall.
“How could I not realize that
was considered international?”
“Watching a YouTube video? How do I explain this to my boss? Watching a video means there was a data download?”
“Oh no I am probably going to get fired!”
3. Anger
The employee turns from frustrated to angry.
“Why did you give me the 3G card anyways!?”
“How was I to know?!”
“My boss told me that I had to make that conference call, no matter what!”
4. Bargaining
The employee looks for a way out.
“Can’t you just call and explain that it was a mistake?”
“Can you just cover it in all the other expenses?”
“Next time, I’ll just turn off roaming.”
“I’m sure that the executives get to do this all the time.”
5. Depression and Sorrow
Depression is a normal stage that must be managed carefully to avoid rash decisions.
“Fine. I just won’t use the phone for work anymore.”
“I’m sure to get fired now. Why bother working on that report?
“I’m sorry, I feel really bad – I’m afraid management will think I took advantage or abused the system.”
6. Testing and Reconstruction
The employee’s mind starts working again, seeking for resolutions.
“Do you think using Skype on my phone would work?”
“Can I turn off the roaming feature for my next trip?”
“What’s the best way to stay connected; how do I know what I should do?”
7. Acceptance
At this stage, the user has accepted the situation and starts behaving normally.
“Hey Bill, look at this cool new app that I downloaded!”
“Mary, did you see that video that’s posted on the conference website?”
Earlier, I provided a podcast on the opportunities in controlling mobile broadband costs. In the post, I included a summary of one opportunity – controlling the mobile broadband roaming expenses incurred when users travel internationally. You can be limited by a carrier’s low or bundled rates that you were offered.
The second area of mobile broadband cost control opportunity enabled by iPass Open Mobile relates to providing information which helps enterprises align mobile broadband users with the most cost effective price plan, based on the user’s individual mobile broadband usage patterns.
Many providers offer a range of mobile broadband packages which differ by price and included content. For example, a given provider may have a package allowing up to 200MB of use and another package allowing up to 5GB. The price difference between these packages can be as much as $20/month.
The ability to identify consistently lower volume users and assign them to a right-sized price plan represents a powerful opportunity for enterprise to optimize their mobile broadband expenditure.
iPass Mobile Insight is an easily mined data repository for historical mobile broadband usage information for each user. This information allows enterprises to readily identify end users who are underutilizing the data allowance of their current mobile broadband subscription plan and are candidates to be re-assigned to lower cost, lower content plans that may be available from the carrier. This data also helps identify users who are not actively using their mobile broadband service and for whom it may be cost effective to discontinue the service or assign the card to a different user.
View Transcript to get the entire story, including more on the first opportunity.
Mobile broadband is becoming increasingly prevalent and represents a growing percentage of an enterprise’s overall connectivity spend. I recently recorded a podcast talking about ways to control these costs, which is below.
There are two main areas of opportunity for enterprises to control their mobile broadband costs. The first is controlling the mobile broadband roaming expenses incurred when users travel internationally. Many providers offer bundled packages which include an allocation of roaming content within a fixed monthly fee or roaming ‘day passes’ aimed at providing improved predictability of mobile broadband roaming costs. However, low or bundled roaming rates often only apply in certain geographies or on certain preferred roaming networks. Mobile broadband rates up to and exceeding $10 per megabyte remain prevalent.
A single point of control can help manage mobile broadband roaming costs by allowing enterprises to create and enforce a wide range of mobile broadband usage policies. These include but are not limited to:
Only allowing mobile broadband roaming access for certain users.
Restricting all mobile broadband roaming in certain countries where costs are more expensive.
Only allowing mobile broadband roaming in certain markets or networks that are associated with a preferred network roaming plan the enterprise has purchased from the carrier.
Enforcing the use of a lower cost WiFi connection when such an option is available to the user.
Different policies may be defined and applied to different user groups, which provides enterprises with the maximum flexibility in implementing these policies.
My next post will cover the second area of mobile broadband cost control opportunity and give you the transcript of the podcast.
We talked to one of our customers, Dan Little, Director, Customer Support Group at The Hay Group, about the costs of enterprise mobility. With 1600 consultants that travel around the world, his IT group needs to provide constant connectivity, but without the possibility of out-of-control costs.
Take a few minutes to watch and hear from his experience. After his intro in this 4:10 video, Dan talks about:
Costs – hidden costs, roaming costs and 3G costs
Controlling connections and usage
Providing insight to executives on usage and patterns
Dan is also joined by Gary Fowler, Product Management at iPass, who provides some best practices for predicting and managing costs of a mobile workforce.
I can safely predict that for the foreseeable future each month will bring new networks, new devices and the need for more bandwidth. Bleeding edge users, also known as your executive management team, will be the first to introduce the latest consumer device to your network, and you’ll need to support it. At the same time you will continue to have some employees clueless about their mobility costs; check out our vlog on the $27,000 pay per view video.
It is the Wild West out there. Mobility is complicated and this isn’t going to change anytime soon.
In fact, we recently surveyed IT managers at large companies, and what we found is not surprising. 68 percent believe their mobility costs will increase in the next 12 months, 40 percent believe it will outpace inflation and 30 percent believe costs will increase by more than 10 percent annually.
So, how do you take this cost explosion and put what I like to call mobile cost erosion in motion. What I mean by mobile cost erosion is that while innovation will continue to drive mobility costs higher, you can put a strategy in practice to help you erode the base of your mobility budget over time.
At this moment you might be thinking, “Well, exactly how do I do that? The carriers have the power!”
1) Go Digging – You need to find out how much you are spending on mobility. Knowledge is power. The more you know, the easier it is to bargain with your vendors.
2) Jump into the Driver’s Seat – You need to define and own your own mobility service. Why can’t you be your own carrier? Mix and match offerings to meet your needs. Provide your employees with a highly customized service that is all your own.
3) Be the ombudsmen – You need to get a piece of your employees’ mobile device, whether it is a laptop, netbook, tablet or smartphone. I’d suggest controlling the point of connection, with a master connection manager. Doing this will give you insight into your employees’ behavior, but more importantly let you prioritize networks based on cost and bandwidth and apply policies.
4) Be willing to walk away. Protect your infrastructure, and ensure that you can make changes without disrupting the employees’ experience, whether it is the latest mobile device or a carrier’s network. Flexibility to make changes means that you can make them compete for your business for a change.
