magazine
32
Opinion
Businesses areunwittingly issuing
their employeeswith corporate ticking
time-bombs.The smart devices, laptops
and tablets that themajority relyon
are insecure, expensive tomaintainand
quicklybecomeoutdatedonce they’ve
beenpurchased.Then there is the
problemof ‘billshock’.As soonas these
devices are takenabroad, they canbuild
uphugemobiledata costs, evenwhen
inactive.
Yet, themarketing and advertising of
mobile devices promises a completely
different experience,where a relaxed
executive sitting in a pavement café in
Paris sips an espresso and effortlessly
files hismonthly sales report fromhis
company laptop.The reality is that
apprehension about high charges applied
tomobile data has prompted draconian
usage policies. In a bid to avoid billshock,
many businesses have simply decided to
ban their employees fromusing any data
whatsoeverwhile abroad.
Business travel is a feature of the
modern corporateworld. If employees
who are keen towork cannot do so
due to strict data usage policies, their
productivitywill be slashed.Aswemove
further towards the cloud, it becomes
evenmore necessary to goonline and
access documents, visit one’s desktop and
send and receive e-mail.To do this, staff
need to be able to leveragemobile data.
Internationalmobile data roaming
charges have, alas, become something of
a cash cow for tier onemobile network
operators, and they show little desire to
abandon the revenue-generating charges.
TheUK government has indicated that
itwill legislate to scrap data roaming
charges, but itwill only seek to do this
in2016, after the next general election.
What a government says itwill do before
an election is not necessarily indicative of
what itwill dowhen elected.
Meanwhile, European politicians
continue tomove against roaming
charges,withNeelie Kroes, European
Commission vice-president responsible
for theDigitalAgenda, describing them
as ‘economicmadness’.The road to
outlawing these fees is long and storied,
with themost recent development being
a delay for ‘procedural reasons’. Even if
Europe votes to scrap roaming fees,we
will still have towait for eachmember
country to implement the law locally.
Higher costs
In the immediate future,when employees
travel abroad andusemobile data, they
are going to continue to incurmuch
higher costs than if they had stayed at
home. So, insteadof the relaxed executive
filing his report from a pavement café,
wewill goon seeing an executivewho
is harassed,worried, constantly checking
the settings onhis device to see how
muchmobile data he has consumed
and furiously attempting to access an
unreliable – andunsecure – publicwi-fi
network in a fast foodoutlet.
In spite of these constraints,mobile
workers are still expected to deliver
excellent performance at a reasonable
cost.This is a tricky balancing actwhen
EnterpriseMobility
– a PromiseUnfulfilled
they have towork under stringentmobile
data costs and rules around data use. It is
complicated further by confusion around
data sizes.Howmuch is 500MB in actual
usage?How large is an e-mail with an
attachment in terms of data size?How
much does it cost to stream a conference
sessionof video?When does the endof
themonth begin and a ‘data ration’ start
over once again?
The government tells us thatUK
businesses are an important contributor
to thewider global economy. Businesses
simply cannot afford towait several years
whilemobile operators, governments
and regulators argue aboutwhat’s an
acceptable solution to international data
roaming.
While these discussions continue,
seemingly forever, UK businesses require a
solution to enablemulti-nationalmobile
data usage in a cost effective, reliable
and straightforwardway. Businesses need
alternativewireless internet solutions
that combat the current inadequacies
ofmobile data.This is the onlyway to
genuinely deliver on the promise of
enterprisemobility.
Enterprisemobility, driven by new
and innovative technology, can enable
companies to bemore successful and
prosperous.However,whilemobile
data usage on themove comeswith an
unsuitable price tag, the grand visionof
enterprisemobile data as the future of
businesswill remainunachievable.
Nigel Bramwell is CEOofmobile
broadband specialistVoiamo. Live in
40 countries,Voiamo’s platforms and
technology let you take yourmobile
broadband planwith you: there are no
roaming charges, no SIMs to switch,
no settings to change.Voiamohas two
brands:Globalgig for the global traveller,
businessmanor adventurer,which
includes the cost of roaming in the data
bundle price; andMobiData for domestic
users,which combines competitiveUK
mobile broadband plans of 1GB, 5GBor
10GBwith low-cost internationalmobile
broadband from just 15p/MB.Globalgig
andMobiData are availablewith aMobile
BroadbandHotspot or SIM.
Even if Europe
votes to scrap
roaming
fees,wewill
still have
towait for
eachmember
country to
implement
the law
locally.
Nigel Bramwell argues that businesses can’t afford towait
for politicians tomakeup theirminds aboutmobiledata
roaming charges
