Managing all those expenses for international calls might get a little easier for some multinational corporations now that T-Mobile USA has joined FreeMove, a mobile telecom alliance spanning Europe.
The FreeMove Alliance includes T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, Orange, TeliaSonera and Telecom Italia Group (TIM). T-Mobile USA plans to offer the alliance’s advanced solutions to multinational clients, especially those requiring communications both in the United States and Europe.
This marks a more concentrated effort on the part of T-Mobile USA to cater to enterprise customers, which want more predictability in their roaming expenses. “We’re doing more as the days and weeks go by,” says Frank Sickinger, director, Multinational Corporations, at T-Mobile USA. The carrier has more than 4 million customers tied to business and government accounts, and it’s important to grow that share.
The highest voice/data traffic from U.S. corporations tends to be to the largest countries in Europe, namely France, the United Kingdom and Germany. The alliance covers those and more. Last week, Turkcell, the third largest operator in Europe based on subscriber numbers, joined FreeMove.
Fabien Gustafsson, general manager of the FreeMove Alliance, says the addition of T-Mobile USA to the FreeMove Alliance footprint will provide real value to businesses operating on both sides of the Atlantic. Some 90 percent of FreeMove’s customers have activities in the United States.
FreeMove customers will benefit from a dedicated global account management approach that includes European and U.S. sales resources, harmonized products and services beyond European borders, and aligned sales, bid and implementation management.
A recent survey by the Gerson Lehrman Group found that 36 percent of CIOs stated that international roaming costs top their list of IT concerns.
