I am new to Twitter, and still not used to the amount of tweets you see there. It is so hard to find a tweet that is meaningful to you.
In a research that was done recently, my impression was substenshiated: 40 per cent of messages on Twitter are "pointless babble".
Read more at http://tinyurl.com/ltsdyn.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Telephony service: Pre-Paid vs. Post-paid
There are 2 very distinct ways for Telecom services to be delivered: One by which you buy bulk of services and pay up front – "Pre-Paid Service", and the other, by which you subscribe to services, and pay after you used them – "Post-Paid Service".
Post-paid services are delivered where the payment ethics are good, and most of the customers have bank accounts and credit cards.
With Telecoms that offer post paid service, you are requested to have a Direct Debit order to your bank account, or to give your credit card number.
Each Bill is then presented to the bank or credit card company for payment, and the bills of these customers are "assumed paid".
Post-paid services may cause great headache to the operators, when customers cancel their direct debit order, or their credit card is no longer active, or they get payment slips and don't pay them.
In every Telecom that offer Post-paid service one finds a Collections department, whose job is to chase the unpaid bills.
I will discuss Collections in the future.
With pre-paid services, the customer pays up front a sum of money which enables usage of services. It can be only voice service, or a mixture of voice, text and internet.
Each time the customer uses the services, the balance is recalculated.
For each service, there is minimum balance which allows usage. Once this minimum is reached, the service is denied and the customer is requested to add money to the balance.
With pre-paid services, Telecom operators do not need to deal with unpaid bills.
If you, the customer, get to choose, what would you prefer: Post-paid service of Pre-paid?
Telecom operators offer better rates for post-paid services, because they know who you are. They have your bank account / credit card number, they have your address, they have your ID number, they can analyze your usage. In many cases you are their customer for a long time.
So, if I would like better offers, and I do have bank account / credit card, and I don't mind my operator having all that knowledge about me, I would go for Post-paid service.
But if I don't have a bank account / credit card, or I want to stay anonymous to the operator, I'd go for the pre-paid service.
Post-paid services are delivered where the payment ethics are good, and most of the customers have bank accounts and credit cards.
With Telecoms that offer post paid service, you are requested to have a Direct Debit order to your bank account, or to give your credit card number.
Each Bill is then presented to the bank or credit card company for payment, and the bills of these customers are "assumed paid".
Post-paid services may cause great headache to the operators, when customers cancel their direct debit order, or their credit card is no longer active, or they get payment slips and don't pay them.
In every Telecom that offer Post-paid service one finds a Collections department, whose job is to chase the unpaid bills.
I will discuss Collections in the future.
With pre-paid services, the customer pays up front a sum of money which enables usage of services. It can be only voice service, or a mixture of voice, text and internet.
Each time the customer uses the services, the balance is recalculated.
For each service, there is minimum balance which allows usage. Once this minimum is reached, the service is denied and the customer is requested to add money to the balance.
With pre-paid services, Telecom operators do not need to deal with unpaid bills.
If you, the customer, get to choose, what would you prefer: Post-paid service of Pre-paid?
Telecom operators offer better rates for post-paid services, because they know who you are. They have your bank account / credit card number, they have your address, they have your ID number, they can analyze your usage. In many cases you are their customer for a long time.
So, if I would like better offers, and I do have bank account / credit card, and I don't mind my operator having all that knowledge about me, I would go for Post-paid service.
But if I don't have a bank account / credit card, or I want to stay anonymous to the operator, I'd go for the pre-paid service.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Who is your service provider?
Once upon a time, there were very few telephony service providers.
You got your service from and you were loyal to the one operator you knew.
In recent years, the name of the game is Mergers & Acquisitions.
You can no longer be loyal to your service provider because they are no longer loyal to you.
Just recently I read an a article about T-Mobile UK which is "for sale", and it really reminds me of the children's game Monopoly... http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=45178&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10
You got your service from and you were loyal to the one operator you knew.
In recent years, the name of the game is Mergers & Acquisitions.
You can no longer be loyal to your service provider because they are no longer loyal to you.
Just recently I read an a article about T-Mobile UK which is "for sale", and it really reminds me of the children's game Monopoly... http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=45178&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10
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