With the addition of Hutchison 3G “Drei” (3) Netsize now offers full coverage of all Austrian operators for premium messaging services. Four network operators fiercely compete in this market of 10.4 million subscribers: A1 Mobilkom (42% market share), T-Mobile Austria (32%), Orange (16%) and Drei (6%). Research and Markets expect the market share of Drei to grow to as much as 10% by the end of 2010 (source: Research and Markets, 2Q08 Austria Mobile Forecast, 2008 – 2010).
Hutchison 3G started in May 2003 with the brand Drei as the first sole mobile multimedia provider in Austria. Drei offers multimedia products such as video calling, music videos and mobile television on the UMTS-mobile and in addition provides the classic ways of communication such as voice calling, SMS and MMS.
With 94% of Austria covered with its UMTS service, and all its mobile handsets equipped with access to Facebook, Google and eBay, Drei is particularly targeting the heavy mobile internet consumer.
Netsize provides operator-based billing through premium messaging (MO as well as MT) on all four network operators. End user price points start from €0.20, up to €10.00.
The use of MT premium however is subject to a few operator regulatory limitations. Drei for instance does not allow MT premium charging for services where the user can use a web browser (mobile or PC) to make a purchase commitment or receive the content / information service.
Operators generally prefer that content providers use WAP billing instead of premium messaging for content services billing. WAP billing has many benefits, as it enhances the user experience, increases transaction clarity and trust, and improves campaign conversion rates. Netsize Online Payment, our platform for operator-based WAP billing in 15 countries, provides a single aggregated access to all operator billing systems.
Since summer 2008 A1 Mobilkom, Austria’s largest operator, has been banning the use of MT billing for new content services entirely, in favour of WAP billing. As of March this year, they have now revised this full ban to allow the use of MT premium again for pure text services that do not make use of a WAP push message to download content from WAP or web, and that cannot make use of WAP billing. As a most trusted Mobilkom partner, Netsize can help content providers with deploying new MT billing services, subject to strict regulations.
