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Industry: Email Alert RSS FeedInternational roaming charges: $693
Communications News, March, 2008
U.S. businesses pay a high cost in mobile phone roaming fees when employees travel internationally. A study conducted for global cellular communications provider Brightroam by research company Harris Interactive reveals that international roaming fees can cost U.S. businesses $693 per trip for every traveler. Surprisingly, few U.S. businesses report plans to look for more affordable options.
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"The study shows that 15 percent of employees make at least one international trip per year," says Jeff Wilson, general manager of Brightroam. "If you consider that many large businesses in the U.S. employ more than 30,000 employees, it is easy to see how roaming costs can take a big bite out of operating costs."
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The majority of respondents to the survey (89 percent) agree that roaming costs are overpriced, but most (61 percent) also report no plans to switch international roaming providers in the coming year. The report revealed that some decision makers have limited visibility into their company's average roaming costs per month. From 34 percent to 44 percent (depending on the company size) report that employees expense their roaming charges versus using a centralized billing system.
"These trends align with our findings," says Joe Basili, vice president of research at the Association of Telecom Management Professionals (AOTMP). "Wireless expenses are raging out of control for enterprises." Research by AOTMP has found that enterprises often do not have enough information on their telecom expenses to identify the best opportunities to reduce these charges.
The study also uncovered other business travel trends, including:
* Four out of five companies report cell phones or smart phones are the primary communication tool used when employees travel internationally and 57 percent of all calls made on a trip are made on these devices.
* Users are more likely to use a cell phone rather than a landline phone, whether they are calling locally, to another country or back to the United States. If not using their cell phone, three-fifths will use a calling card and half will use the hotel phone.
* Almost half (46 percent) of companies subscribe to a domestic cell phone service that uses both GSM and CDMA.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Nelson Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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