MSN To Spearhead WAP Charging Gateway

Mobile 365 LogoMobile 365 has launched a Mobile Operator Charging Gateway and has announced MSN Asia has signed on as a customer. “Microsoft as a launch customer is a pretty good thing for us,” said Nordin, vice president of product management at Mobile 365.
The Mobile Operator Charging Gateway (OCG) is a pretty good idea in a market so fragmented — Rafat just blogged a complaint from the director of interactive media at Endemol UK that all the operators have different pricing methods, which makes it difficult for an independent content provider who wants to offer a single price for their service. Press releases on the Mobile 365 site reveale the OCG sits between operators and content providers and allows content providers to charge for products and services directly to a subscribers’ mobile phone bill rather than relying on premium SMS or other payment methods. ” The OCG is designed so content owners can charge irrespective of the delivery method used and they have a single API to access all the operators’ billing platforms worldwide (at least, those which have signed up to the service). Possibly the biggest benefit to content providers is the ability to “modify price plans rapidly, and offer discounts on a transactional basis without conferring with individual operators”.
The success of these sorts of ventures rely on the quality of the service offered and the number of organizations signing up. Obviously, MSN Asia is a big win for Mobile 365 so early in the game…it will help add legitimacy for other content providers and encourage recalcitrant operators’ to sign up. MSN has previous deals with Mobile 365 to provide Hotmail and Messenger access via two-way SMS. So far the three Singaporean mobile operators (M1, SingTel, and StarHub) have signed on and Mobile 365 claims to have carriers in Australia and Thailand as well, although the next market launch is tipped as China.
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