A new survey has questioned the financial wisdom of relying on mobile phone use for the purposes of making international work-related calls whilst travelling.
The survey, by telecommunications data and services supplier, CCMI, and entitled ‘Trends and Best Practices to Control International Roaming Costs’, identified a significant degree of disquiet regarding the costs of international mobile phone use among representatives from leading companies in the US.
The survey found that, generally, most of this unease was justified.
One of the key findings by CCMI was that 37% of businesses admitted each of their internationally mobile employees costs them, on average, at least $1,000 every month in terms of international mobile roaming costs alone.
The survey also found that 40% of companies had felt so worried about the costs of using mobiles to make international calls that they had taken steps to either limit or impose a complete ban on mobile phone use among their staff whilst abroad on business.
CCMI found that such drastic steps may well have some justification, given the revelation brought to its attention during the survey that some individual monthly mobile phone bills were registering between $10,000 and $200,000 a month.
Nevertheless, according to CCMI’s president, George David, attempts to curb international mobile phone expenditure among businesses were still resulting in a situation where, generally, ‘the problem – and expense – continues to grow exponentially’.
The findings of the survey have been seen by many commentators as the reason why an increasing number of companies are adopting business VoIP (voice over internet protocol).
As well as providing the potential for cheaper phone calls, both nationally and internationally, one of the key advantages of a business VoIP connection is that it is transportable; in other words, an employee can send and receive calls using the same low-rate number regardless of location.
