telco_telco 30/08/2013 12:24 Page 1
WIRELESS WATCH
The economics of 4G and toll-free data
Steve Gold wonders whether a US charging initiative could improve 4G prospects in Europe.
charge the content providers. Once this happens, he said, then the industry can start to see the change of who pays for the content. Although history shows that these types of technical obstacles can be beaten, the other problem facing in the industry is that so-called net neutrality advocates are concerned that this approach would create a two-tier mobile Internet that favours the rich and large content providers at the expense of smaller ones. Shammo suggested that, if the toll-free data technology is enabled on the US carrier’s networks, then it becomes possible to charge LTE (4G) users different prices based on the time of day or other variations, although he adds that such a scheme would only confuse users. And confused users are an expensive option for carriers – as Shammo says, since introducing Verizon’s Share Everything shared data plans which come with unlimited voice and messaging – this has helped to reduce the number of calls to customer service. Such calls are “a huge infrastructure cost for us,” he admitted. This writer’s opinion is that toll-free data – whilst feasible in the US because of the size of the cellular market – is unlikely to get off the ground here in Europe, owing to the regulatory, as well as the technology costs, especially against the backdrop of the expensive game t ]
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