[opendtv] Re: AT&T sounds deathknell for unlimited mobile data
- From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:02:34 -0500
I remember when ISP's would charge by the minute or the hour too. But
competition and technology evolved and the ones staying competitive had
to start offering 24/7 plans. I even remember one specific phone call
to my then-ISP where the guy got fairly upset I was even inquiring about
an all-you-can-eat plans. But I switched to one that year.
AT&T can't really maintain monopolistic/oligopolistic pricing policies
unless they can convince most other carriers to do the same thing.
Maybe they can do that. But it seems it would be hard at the same time
they are in a range war with Verizon about speeds and coverage. I mean,
how do you advertise a super high speed network that doesn't allow you
to use it for video or audio streaming? They are going to have to make
up their minds.
- Tom
Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
> Wow. It will be difficult for 4G to become a generic wireless broadband "last
> mile" link in the future, if they can't emulate wired broadband pricing
> models. I don’t see how the cellcos can go back to ancient telco pricing
> models. I don’t believe it.
>
> Bert
>
> ---------------------------------------
> http://www.rethink-wireless.com/article.asp?article_id=2239
>
> AT&T sounds deathknell for unlimited mobile data
> By CAROLINE GABRIEL
>
> Published: 10 December, 2009
>
> The end had to come - it's been increasingly obvious that flat rate,
> unlimited mobile data plans, often at cutthroat rates, were becoming
> unsustainable, for the carrier's creaking networks and for their
> profitability. The trend will start to reverse in 2010, forcing customers to
> pay premiums for high usage or optimal quality of service. Already, cellcos
> like 3 and Vodafone are using tactics such as deep packet inspection to curb
> excessive usage or certain types of traffic, or to deliver tiered levels of
> QoS, for differentiated tariffs. Now AT&T, whose problems with supporting the
> smartphone data flood on its 3G networks have been most highly publicized,
> has tolled the death knell for all-you-can-eat.
>
> The cellco has not yet gone as far as a return to usage-based pricing, or a
> tiered tariff plan, though many observers think it - and its rivals - will
> have to do this in future. For now, it is mainly focusing on incentives to
> customers to rein in excessive data use. This highlights the carriers'
> dilemmas. They have set expectations of cheap, unlimited data, which will now
> be hard to change without user dissatisfaction and churn (especially if a
> rival with a better network, perhaps like Sprint/Clearwire, can stick to more
> attractive deals). And they know their hold on their subscribers is too
> tenuous to engage in unsubtle sticks like data caps or cut-offs, so they need
> to present their traffic curbing measures as benefits to the consumer - an
> increased quality of service for a small premium, or a carrot to reduce usage.
>
> At an investor conference in New York yesterday, Ralph de la Vega, AT&T's
> head of wireless, said the operator was considering such incentives to get
> consumers to reduce their data usage, with 3% of smartphone users now
> consuming 40% of network capacity.
>
> "We're going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives to those small
> percentages to either reduce or modify their usage so they don't crowd out
> the other customers in those same cell sites," he said, though he was short
> on actual details of how this would be achieved.
>
> Some of it will be down to increased awareness and education, since many
> consumers are unaware of which apps are bandwidth hogs. "What's driving usage
> on the network and driving these high usage situations are things like video,
> or audio that keeps playing around the clock," he said, according to the AT&T
> transcript. "And so we've got to get to those customers and have them
> recognize that they need to change their pattern, or there will be other
> things that they are going to have to do to reduce their usage."
>
> He also hinted at usage-based pricing in the future. "I think longer term,
> there's got to be some sort of a pricing scheme that addresses the usage," he
> said. "But that's going to be determined by industry competitive factors,
> regulatory factors and customer successes."
>
> At its own investor conference, Sprint Nextel was addressing the same issues.
> CEO Dan Hesse commented: "When you think about postpaid .... it's not just
> going to be your phone. It's going to be your camera, your iTouch, your
> gaming device - they're all going to become wireless, so what's going to be
> the right plan for those? As we move into 4G, it'll be much less about
> minutes and more about gigabytes as the main driver of what customers are
> buying per month, because it's going to be VoIP oriented. Minutes will be
> largely irrelevant."
>
> He added: "We want to have the flexibility - in wholesale and retail, prepaid
> and postpaid, with multiple brands - to move and morph, because business
> models are going to change…The biggest growth will come from
> non-traditional wireless devices." This is one of the key benefits of
> Sprint's close involvement in Clearwire, which offers a greenfield, all-IP,
> high capacity network that is better suited to supporting multiple business
> models, and flexible usage/charging models, than those systems created
> primarily for voice and the walled garden. However, Hesse would not be drawn
> by a question on whether Sprint would eventually seek to buy out Clearwire.
> The network, in which Sprint is the largest stakeholder, is the cellco's best
> opportunity to get back into the high value mobile game, and to outflank the
> big two in terms of network capacity and therefore QoS, new apps and flexible
> tariffs. Verizon Wireless will be next off the blocks with a 4G network
> geared to the same benefits, though the CDMA carrier has less spectrum to
> play with.
> b��ju
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