Electronic Airtime Distribution
The quality revenue for GSM operators still lie in contracted customers, but pre-paid airtime's contributions has become increasingly significant to the bottom line. Efficiencies in the management and distribution of pre-paid airtime has to be carefully considered to drive maximum profit.
In South Africa alone, Vodacom (one of three network operators) claimed a total of 21 million pre-paid customers in 2008. This in a country that has not yet reached the 50 million total population figure.
It is clear that the effective distribution of pre-paid airtime has become a significant component of a networks revenue stream. As electronic airtime distribution (EAD) avenues are opening up, this airtime does not need to be distributed via scratch cards any more.
Psitek's electronic airtime distribution solutions are based on a scalable powerful and reliable back end platform, and affords the network fine grained control over the distribution of their airtime. It offers a number of advantages over the more traditional scratch cards:
- It is more secure for the network, as no physical stock handling is involved any more. Scratch cards printed in bulk present a significant security risk to a network.
- It is more secure for the vendors, as the system only delivers a PIN on demand, and the vending terminal does not carry any stock.