Google is making easy for wireless customers on its hybrid WiFi-cellular Project Fi service to split their shared bills.
The company this week launched “Group repay,” a feature that automatically calculates each shared user’s portion of the bill and sends out reminders to secondary users to pay the plan owner back using Google Wallet.
Group repay includes a number of different bill splitting options, including individual usage totals, fixed amounts, or money spent on over-budget data only. Google said it’s also offering better bill payment tracking for Project Fi that offers both an overall summary and histories for each user on the account.
Google said the move is aimed at the more than 75 percent of adults who share their wireless plan with at least one other person, presumably some of whom joined Project Fi with the introduction of its reduced-price group plans back in October.
But the company isn’t the only one targeting multi-line accounts. Traditional wireless carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have all pegged families and other multi-line accounts as prime targets. Even free and low-cost carrier FreedomPop turned an eye to families earlier this year with a new free basic group bundle.
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has explained in the past why multi-line accounts are so valuable, noting those customers tend to stay longer than single-line account holders.
“If you can capture that, which is what we want – prime families are more than individuals with a single line – you start seeing the business provide a very different life customer value and profitability changes,” he explained.
The Group repay feature began rolling out Tuesday and is expected to be available to all users by the end of this week.
Filed Under: Carriers
