Benchmarking public sector mobile telephone costs

19 July 2007

We have been working with a number of clients to develop benchmarking data for mobile telecommunications.

The charts (shown in the PDF document which can be downloaded on the right hand side of this page) detail twelve months' comparative details for five clients and show:

• average monthly cost per handset;
• average monthly minutes per handset;
• average monthly SMS messages per handset; and
• average number of calls per handset per month.

Figure 1 (average monthly cost per handset) shows that there was quite a variance in costs a year ago - between £4.00 and £15.00 per handset per month, but that this variance has now narrowed to between £4.00 and £10.50. Indeed, the client whose monthly costs averaged £15.00 per month is now only paying £4.50 per month (Series 3 in green on the chart), mainly as a result of a change of network in June 2007. The client still incurring £10.50 per month charges prefers not to accept our recommendations for cost savings and as a result is paying a premium of £3.00 per handset above those clients that have been happy to accept our recommendations.....

Benchmarking data proves useful not only for comparing clients costs with other similar organisations, but also for identifying changing trends in usage patterns, and sudden peaks (usually caused by either stolen handsets that have not been reported, deliberate misuse or by faulty equipment). In Figure 2 (average monthly minutes per handset) an unusual peak in Series 2 (shown in red) in March 2007 was caused by excessive use of mobile data during a particularly rigorous Smartphone trial!

Figure 3 (average monthly SMS messages per handset) also shows a major peak in Series 2 (red) which resulted from a faulty CCTV motion sensor unit that had been incorrectly programmed by the supplier and was sending an SMS message every minute until we alerted the client. However, the supplier still didn't reprogramme the unit correctly and the unit carried on "phoning home". Luckily, we were able to provide chapter and verse for our client, who successfully recovered all the excessive SMS charges from their supplier.

Figure 4 (average number of calls per handset per month) is a useful tool for focusing clients' attention on unusual usage volumes. The clients whose data is shown in Series 2 to 5 are all broadly similar (within the range 20 to 45 calls per month per handset), but the client whose data is shown at Series 1 was significantly higher between February and June, and we are working with the client to identify the possible causes.

If clients are interested to know which is their particular data please contact Steve Bellerby at 01952 825 820.