Yikes, here I am at Mach Insights in Berlin and to be honest, I am having a great time. I watched some great presentations from Informa (Mark Newman and Pamela Clark-Dickson) and from Vesa Terava from the European Commission.
What did I learn?
Well to be honest, it felt as though I was back in 2000. But this time no one was talking about voice tariffs but data roaming and instead data tariffs were the new evil. There were some crazy statistics such as
“42% of all roamers globally do not use data”.
There was a sense that consumers were savvy and aware of pricing and the potential of a revenue stream for operators was difficult. The focus was on creating new revenue streams and new services and innovative data billing. Services such as Zero Facebook was highlighted as innovative in avoiding data and using SMS to post updates
I felt strangely in a time warp when people spoke of “bundles” and “timed billing” and new pricing but after a few interviews and sessions with Artur Michalczyk and Charles Damen (interview coming up) I feel more relieved.
Anyway, in short the morning session was a warning that if mobile operators do not change billing for data a revenue stream will be cut short or ignored. The future is to focus on types of billing and innovative segmentation of billing.
Artur Michalczyk said that the future would be daily bundles or services that instead of informing users they have hit their mobile data tariff limit – offering them controlled and managed payment methods to enhace the consumer experience.
What we think?
Well to be honest I am also afraid of bill shock and anyone that isn’t must have very deep pockets. Data roaming is a big problem and regulation is definitely necessary and unavoidable at the moment to make it transparent.
There are applications which allow you to prevent possible bill shock of data charges. For example Roaming Guard for Symbian smartphones, No Data for Windows Mobile… A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush…