iGR, Cequint: Wireless Caller ID Poised to Earn Millions for Carriers

Forbes.com – Business Wire Press Release – January 23, 2008 – A new iGR Inc. report made public today estimates that cellular carriers will increase the revenue they earn per subscriber by 4 percent if just 20 percent of their customers purchase enhanced Caller ID for wireless at $1.99/month.

iGR, an Austin, TX-based consultancy and research firm contracted by Cequint, reports in its study "Mobile Caller ID: A Balance of Privacy and Profitability" that landline telecom service providers continue to earn hundreds of millions of dollars each year by charging $5 to $10 per month for Caller ID. In some metropolitan markets, as many as 80 percent of consumers with a landline telephone pay for Caller ID service that displays the name associated with an incoming number.

Cellular service providers, however, have not realized revenues generated by enhanced Caller ID because carrier-provided name and number service is not available on wireless phones.

Responding to the majority of cellular subscribers who wish to keep their wireless number private, the carriers do not share their databases of names and numbers. Some businesses have tried to develop third-party directories by searching public documents and other sources of direct marketing information, but iGR reports that these third-party directories are highly inaccurate, having been developed without operator involvement.

Despite the lack of innovation in mobile Caller ID, iGR research suggests there is a strong unrealized demand for wireless call screening and highlights a location-based approach to Caller ID that is highly profitable to operators, acceptable from a consumer privacy standpoint, and is seeing strong penetration rates when offered by mobile carriers. As the first enhancement to wireless number-only Caller ID, Cequint's new City ID provides specific information on where a telephone number is registered (namely, the city and state where the caller's number resides). City ID often provides enough information to help a subscriber identify the caller and decide whether or not to answer a call from an unfamiliar number. The application is embedded on the handset and leverages the carriers' existing billing and provisioning systems, enabling a new feature revenue opportunity that doesn't require any network upgrade or capital investment.

"Wireless subscribers are really just looking for a way to decide whether or not to accept calls, and city and state helps identify many incoming calls in a way that is effective for subscribers and profitable for the mobile operators," said Gillott.

For example, iGR reports that if an operator serving 30 million subscribers enjoys a City ID penetration rate of 20 percent for service that costs $1.99 a month, the carrier realizes new revenue worth $143 million annually.

"Call screening is a deeply ingrained consumer behavior," said Scott Weller, president of Cequint, which contracted iGR to conduct its Caller ID research. "Granular location information with each incoming call empowers mobile subscribers and allows carriers to leverage their entire voice base for added feature revenue."

About Cequint, Inc.

Founded in 2005 by executives that helped pioneer call screening technologies, Seattle-based Cequint is a privately funded company that enjoys a comprehensive portfolio of patented Caller ID and call screening solutions. For more information on the company, its products or technology, please visit www.cequint.com.

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