O2 creates team to 'mobilise' businesses

• Tags:
• Rates,
• Mobility,
• Roaming,
• European Commission

David Meyer ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 05 Feb 2008 15:18 GMT

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O2 has created a dedicated team of mobility experts for its enterprise customers.

The mobile operator, which is owned by the Spanish company Telefonica, said on Monday that the O2 Professional Services team would provide customers with "innovative and bespoke mobile or data [products and services] which address the specific needs of their business".

"Acting as a trusted partner for our corporate customers, we are dedicated to tackling the business issues they face," said Ben Dowd, O2's business sales director, in a statement on Monday. "O2 Professional Services builds on the pedigree heritage of the corporate team and will allow us to drive deeper engagement with our customers and take advantage of new revenue opportunities."

Speaking to ZDNet.co.uk on Monday, Dowd said the idea was to "take the hassle away" from its customers and help them "mobilise their business". He explained that the team would advise customers on mobility trends in their particular sectors, such as what applications have been popular with similar companies and what technologies are becoming available. He also said the team would provide return-on-investment analyses for customers before final recommendations are made.

Last month O2 significantly cut its data-roaming rates for customers travelling in Europe. It now has much lower data-roaming rates than its rivals, but the cuts have come many months after the European Commission announced it wanted operators to lessen such charges. Asked why it had taken so long to make the cuts, Dowd claimed that data-roaming rates were only "one aspect of what a corporate might be looking for".

"Our propositions are bespoke anyway," said Dowd, who suggested that corporate customers were more interested in "efficiencies" than they were in data-roaming rates. "It is not in our interest to overcharge our customers," he added.

Dowd also suggested that O2 planned to upgrade its mobile broadband HSDPA network to speeds of 10.2Mbps by the end of 2008, and said O2 would be launching a fixed-line service — based on its 2006 acquisition of Be Broadband — for SMEs by the end of the summer and larger corporate customers by the end of the year.

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