EU Helps Preventing Mobile Bill Shock

One of the more trendy traffic control applications is Bill Shock Prevention. Many of us have experienced this shock when the a  thousands dollars bill follows a 3-day trip - whether you are on business or just a UK student spending a month in Paris resulting-in a £8,000 charges for mobile Internet (see here).

The EU decided to help consumers preventing that (in addition to other similar regulations), by allowing subscribers to put a limit on their data charges with a default of €50, and a warning when 80% of the limit has been reached. This starts today, March 1st (see here)

"From today, all Europeans making calls or sending texts with their mobiles can experience the EU's single market without borders. The roaming-rip off is now coming to an end thanks to the determined action of the European Commission, the European Parliament and all 27 EU Member States"

- Viviane Reding,
Commissioner for Information Society and Media 

As far as traffic control is concerned, this is a classical application that goes nicely with similar functions such as byte-cap limits (quota) or fair use. In the current mobile network architecture, it is implemented with the use of a PCRF (Policy and Charging Rules Function) system. In perfect timing, Bridgewater Systems announced today a customer win for their solution in this space - see Major European Operator Goes Live with Bridgewater PCRF - here.