Bharti Airtel, the world's fifth largest telecom company and India's largest by subscribers, selected Nokia Siemens Networks to build and operate its LTE network (4g) in Maharashtra circle. It has planned to launch this fourth-generation mobile broadband services in India this year.
Reliance Industry will start its PAN India 4g operation in next 18 to 24 months.
In real life scenario, all Telcos also put data throttling which prohibits customer to use data beyond certain limit. To the extent, heard that RCOM is planning to throttle data even for its prepaid subscriber using PCRF. This is a pure conflict of interest.
Consider the people who frequently stream youtube videos or play online games on their mobile devices. These are taxing activities on networks, and not everybody does them regularly. Carriers could potentially create separate types of data plans for customers with specific types of use patterns. They could charge extra for these special plans, and in exchange give these customers priority in gaining access to the higher network speeds so they would get a consistently good connection when playing games or watching video.
Carriers should install deep packet inspection to understand and monitor the types of traffic on their network that are coming from customers. Certain data packets can be identified as gaming-related or video-related, without revealing which specific game or video is loaded on a device so as to respect privacy. If the carrier detects a high amount of video- or game-related activity, it can inform the customers of an option to sign up for a special data plan that suits their patterns of use. I don't understand why operators don't see it as a revenue opportunity. Operator should allow online charging for these types of customers instead of restricting them.
The rest of the customers on normal data plans would still be able to enjoy fast Internet speeds, stream the occasional video or play a game, and not be throttled either.
I believe along with data throttling, deep packet inspection, operator should invest in technologies like dynamic charging for data usage also.
Here is an interesting video on att data throttling & data usage
I think problem with data throttling is that it has a connotation of punishment. People surpass a certain data level, and then they are slowed down. This is bad.
If these types of restriction will continue, this will bad for subscribers and I don't find any justification to use 4g network. I hope Mr. Mittal and Mr. Mukesh Ambani will help us to use 4g network at its full potential without these types of throttling of speed.
What do you think?
Source :Is Data Throttling a Necessary Evil for Cellphone Carriers?
Interesting Article : Judge awards iPhone user $850 in data speed throttling case
Latest update as per USA today :
AT&T changes throttling policy for heavy data users on 2nd March'12.
Customer with "unlimited" data plans will face data throttling once they reach 3 gigabytes within a billing cycle. LTE customer would experience a slowdown at 5 GB of data usage.
Reliance Industry will start its PAN India 4g operation in next 18 to 24 months.
The main business case for the 3g and 4G network roll out was enabling subscriber to get high speed data access along with video streaming etc.
In real life scenario, all Telcos also put data throttling which prohibits customer to use data beyond certain limit. To the extent, heard that RCOM is planning to throttle data even for its prepaid subscriber using PCRF. This is a pure conflict of interest.
Consider the people who frequently stream youtube videos or play online games on their mobile devices. These are taxing activities on networks, and not everybody does them regularly. Carriers could potentially create separate types of data plans for customers with specific types of use patterns. They could charge extra for these special plans, and in exchange give these customers priority in gaining access to the higher network speeds so they would get a consistently good connection when playing games or watching video.
Carriers should install deep packet inspection to understand and monitor the types of traffic on their network that are coming from customers. Certain data packets can be identified as gaming-related or video-related, without revealing which specific game or video is loaded on a device so as to respect privacy. If the carrier detects a high amount of video- or game-related activity, it can inform the customers of an option to sign up for a special data plan that suits their patterns of use. I don't understand why operators don't see it as a revenue opportunity. Operator should allow online charging for these types of customers instead of restricting them.
The rest of the customers on normal data plans would still be able to enjoy fast Internet speeds, stream the occasional video or play a game, and not be throttled either.
I believe along with data throttling, deep packet inspection, operator should invest in technologies like dynamic charging for data usage also.
Here is an interesting video on att data throttling & data usage
I think problem with data throttling is that it has a connotation of punishment. People surpass a certain data level, and then they are slowed down. This is bad.
If these types of restriction will continue, this will bad for subscribers and I don't find any justification to use 4g network. I hope Mr. Mittal and Mr. Mukesh Ambani will help us to use 4g network at its full potential without these types of throttling of speed.
What do you think?
Source :Is Data Throttling a Necessary Evil for Cellphone Carriers?
Interesting Article : Judge awards iPhone user $850 in data speed throttling case
Latest update as per USA today :
AT&T changes throttling policy for heavy data users on 2nd March'12.
Customer with "unlimited" data plans will face data throttling once they reach 3 gigabytes within a billing cycle. LTE customer would experience a slowdown at 5 GB of data usage.
Data throttling should not be considered as a restriction. PCRF facilitates Telcos to provide fair usage and differential charging for different set of subscribers. Why one subscriber should suffer due to excessive usage by another subscriber. It can also inform the subscriber of a data plan which may be suitable to him and also beneficial to Telco.
ReplyDeleteAjay,
DeleteI tend to agree with your view but it's also not good for those users who wants to have a premium high data usage service.
Earlier Telcos used to use staircase charging to give discount for heavy users. Now, I think Telcos should adopt incremental increase of charging principle for heavy data users. Users should pay more once they cross 3GB and even more once they cross 5 GB and so on. I think this extra revenue will help the Telcos as well as keep all users happy. Telcos can add more bandwidth and latest technology once they have good business case.
This is more like punishing the heavy users.
ReplyDeleteUsing step-charges (higher cost for data when you download a LOT) would be better. These users would be happier to pay the money, instead of having to wait hours for that video of cat to download.
I totally agree with you.
DeleteBy name of standardization, this is a punishment...This may backfire... Unlimited plan can not be interpreted differently..
ReplyDeleteI think new charging and pricing policy need to be set. Current charging is more friendly towards voice users. Charging should based on application type, time, cell congestion, customer segmentation etc.. People should pay for the usage.
ReplyDelete