BillMonitor

BillMonitor announces accreditation by Ofcom

BillMonitor is the first mobile price comparison service to be accredited by Ofcom

Oxford, UK, 21^st May 2009 – BillMonitor, a new price comparison tool for UK mobile users, today becomes the first UK mobile price comparison service to be accredited by Ofcom. The site uses advanced statistics developed by BillMonitor’s team of mathematicians with scientific advisors from Oxford University to identify the best price plan for consumers based on their individual usage patterns. According to research from BillMonitor, 88% of users can save an average of 39% on their mobile phone bill.

The UK mobile market offers consumers more than three million deals on over 119,078 tariffs. With such a broad choice and the complexity of offers available, the need for impartial, personalised mobile advice is stronger than ever.

BillMonitor’s Interim Mobile Price Index analysed hundreds of actual users’ online bills, illustrating that most consumers are on the wrong plan for their usage patterns. For example, 82% are on plans with inclusive minutes they don’t use. BillMonitor simplifies the complicated mobile market to empower customers by clearly showing them how and where they could make savings:

• 88% of BillMonitor users save money by switching to the tariff most suitable for them – an average saving of £16.46 a month – that equates to £197 a year
• Extrapolating across the 26 million UK mobile contract users, that equates to £4.09 billion of savings
• Most users could upgrade to an iPhone for just £2.70 more per month than they are already paying for their current contract handset

BillMonitor’s service includes:

• Online bill tracking: Consumers supply their online billing account details and BillMonitor automatically analyses their online bills for a tailored and accurate recommendation based on analysis of their usage patterns
• One-off tariff search: Users can enter the number of minutes and texts they use per month, as well as overseas calls, picture messaging and data usage to locate the most appropriate tariff for consumers’ usage patterns

“Science has been put to work for struggling consumers in a free service to help them lower their bills,” said Stelios Koundouros, Co-founder, BillMonitor. “BillMonitor helps people to save money on their mobile phone bills by providing them with accurate information to empower them to make confident purchase decisions.”

Established by a team of mathematicians and scientific advisors, Prof Chris Holmes and Dr Nicolai Meinshausen, from the University of Oxford, BillMonitor provides a very practical application of complex statistics; championing the desire of consumers to save money, especially important in uncertain economic times.  The service analyses historical usage patterns, predicts future behaviour and suggests the best mobile price plans with a high degree of certainty that individuals will see real savings. The science behind the service is based on research funded by an R&D grant from the Department of Trade and Industry in statistical decision technology.

For more information on BillMonitor, please see: www.billmonitor.com

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About BillMonitor

BillMonitor was founded by Dr. Stelios Koundouros, Professor Chris Holmes and Dr. Nicolai Meinshausen based on research funded by an R&D grant from the Department of Trade and Industry in statistical decision technology.  BillMonitor.com is operated by Optimor Ltd, a company registered in England with offices at 10 Mayfield Road, Oxford, OX2 7EL. Optimor is backed by The Accelerator Group and Finance South East.

For more information please contact:

Georgina Bonner / Alexis Dalrymple

Billmonitor@hotwirepr.com

Tel: 020 7608 2500 / +44 (0) 7739 333 288

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 10:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.