Yesterday, France Telecom and Telefonica executives said they will seek to change their peering agreements and will look to charge content providers, particularly those who provide video streaming for passing that traffic over their mobile networks to their consumer customers.
So essentially what these executives are saying is, we are afraid consumers will not pay any more for in terms of the mobile access fees than they are paying today for mobile data services.
This is a complete cop out. They are asking over the top service providers to bear a cost, which they will most likely need to pass on to their consumer customers. These service providers will then be forced to change their business models to fund this cost, depending on whether the consumer accesses those services via mobile network or fixed ones. That is certainly problematic logistically and also in terms of consumer perception.
It is up to the mobile network carrier to monetize their services, which in this case is mobile data access. They provide the mobile network, so don’t sell those services to consumers at a loss. If all you can eat plans are unprofitable, change it. Now is the time for more innovative service offerings from mobile operators – metered billing, QOS triggered services, pricing based on underutilized or overtaxed cell sites, all based on real time billing, policy management and other advanced technologies that mobile operators have at their disposal.
Push these heavyweight service providers at your peril. Solve your own problems.
