Bill shock from high telecom roaming costs could be a thing of the past for those using Airtel Africa’s network.

This is after the telecoms provider has inked a deal with wholesale carrier services firm BICS, which says it has deployed its ‘Data Roaming Booster Solution’ for Airtel Africa to “prevent bill shock and enhance campaign management.”

BICS explains that with its SMART Webvision service -- an integrated monitoring, tracking, tracing and business intelligence tool for 2G, 3G and 4G networks -- Airtel Africa is set to monitor all its roaming traffic based on different tariffs and technologies in real-time.

Furthermore, the bill shock prevention feature of BICS' Data Roaming Booster Solution works in conjunction with SMS messages that alert subscribers before they reach preset thresholds.

As part of a deal with BICS, all seventeen of mobile operator Airtel Africa’s operations are also able to monitor inbound and outbound roaming traffic, monetise international text message traffic with a hosted SMS firewall, and increase their overall roaming footprint with a ‘Roaming Hub’ and ‘Roamfast’ service.

"The roll-out of our new Bill Shock and Campaign Management value-added service will help improve customer satisfaction and loyalty," said Clémentine Fournier, regional vice president Africa, BICS.

André Beyers, chief marketing officer of Airtel Africa, said, "With this roaming value-added service we are able to achieve higher levels of visibility of the performance of our networks, which in turn allows us to improve the quality of our roaming offering. The platform also enables us to identify and resolve performance issues in real time to provide higher service levels to our customers."

Airtel has African operations in Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger,Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Airtel has 68.3 million subscribers in Africa.