Citizens Utilities Board's Wireless Bill Analysis Tool Powered by Validas(R) Wins Award for AOTMP's 'Enterprise Project of the Year'

HOUSTON, Feb. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The Illinois consumer advocacy group Citizen Utilities Board (CUB) was honored with the "Enterprise Project of the Year" award at the 2010 AOTMP Industry Excellence Awards for its "Cell Phone Saver" offering – an online service powered by Validas. The Validas online service can be accessed from CUB's Web site at www.citizensutilityboard.org, which enables thousands of consumers to analyze actual cell phone usage simply and optimize calling plans in a manner that saves average subscribers 22 percent on their bills.

In collaboration with Validas, CUB found that 80 percent of wireless subscribers pay more for wireless bills than they should, either because of overage charges or overpaying for unused services. The "Cell Phone Saver" works for AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint (and Nextel), T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular customers.  

The study found that the average user could save $662 over the typical two-year cell phone contract. Some key savings points from the study are listed below:

• Of the bills for which the "CUB Cell Phone Saver" was able to recommend savings, the average consumer was overpaying by an astounding $27.61 per month, or $331.32 per year.
• The majority of bills analyzed included unused, paid minutes, with the average user wasting 439 minutes a month, or 46 percent of paid minutes. That's almost seven-and-a-half hours — an entire workday of wasted minutes, and the equivalent of a phone conversation lasting longer than a flight from Chicago to Reykjavik, Iceland.
• The vast majority of bills with text messaging plans had consumers paying for unused messages, at an average of 386, or 65 percent, unused text messages a month.

AOTMP, the leading provider of information solutions for fixed and wireless telecom environments, announced the finalist selections for the 2010 Industry Excellence Awards being presented at the TEM 2010 conference in Orlando. The AOTMP Industry Excellence Awards were developed to recognize enterprises and industry suppliers committed to telecom management best practices.

About Validas

Validas®, a pioneer in online wireless billing analysis, provides consumers, businesses and government agencies with a simple, secure online service that enables them to optimize rate plans and save money cutting bottom line costs by an average of 20 to 40 percent. Founded by wireless industry professionals, Validas eliminates the confusion of wireless bills and rate plans to deliver more value to its users. The Web-based wireless bill analysis and optimization software platform leverages patent-pending algorithms, processes and PDF scanning capabilities to deliver powerful business intelligence in seconds.

For more information visit http://www.myvalidas.com.

SOURCE Validas