Comments on: Andrew Bud on mBlox’s Sender-Pays Mobile Data offering

By: Lonster

Lonster — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:05:07 +0000

This can only be good news for content providers and their customers.

By having a fixed priced for content the customer knows exactly what they are paying and the content provider can only benefit from increased content downloads/sales as a result.

Not everybody is on flat rate mobile data plans/tariffs and this will certainly see an increase in revenue from those on PAYG users or those with a zero data allowance.

By: Lonster

Lonster — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:05:07 +0000

By: James Lai

James Lai — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:08:14 +0000

shares http://tinyurl.com/bxdkou (Sender pays for mobile data! Interesting idea.) http://plurk.com/p/i6owf #plurk

[Original tweet, Topsy page]

By: James Lai

James Lai — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:08:14 +0000

shares http://tinyurl.com/bxdkou (Sender pays for mobile data! Interesting idea.) http://plurk.com/p/i6owf #plurk

By: Mobile Labs

Mobile Labs — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:42:58 +0000

A look a Free To End User mobile marketing models, it is starting in the UK: http://bit.ly/JetzL

[Original tweet, Topsy page]

By: Mobile Labs

Mobile Labs — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:42:58 +0000

A look a Free To End User mobile marketing models, it is starting in the UK: http://bit.ly/JetzL

By: Ewan @ MIR

Ewan @ MIR — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:45:09 +0000

I can only HOPE that the situation gets better jayceedee… I just don't see that happening at the moment. I'm delighted that, for example, Vodafone has made all of it's new contracts (from memory) inclusive of fair-use mobile data. As long as you don't go nuts, they won't ever bill you extra for data. This is *super*. But what about the PAYG users? Gahh. And I wonder just how many Vodafone contract customers are using inclusive data price plans? A lot of folk won't be. It's messed up. And it's a *REAL* problem for anyone trying to sell content.

By: jayceedee

jayceedee — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:15:17 +0000

It is definitely an improvement on the current situation but this appears more like a short term opportunity rather than a long term one. If it gives people a clear price for a download then I'm all for it, but I can't help but feel that flat rate mobile internet charges will make this redundant in the next 18 months to 3 years. Still, its a good stopgap.

I definitely don't get his fixed wireless play, the vast majority of broadband customers are on a flat rate charge and I don't see the content distributors wanting to pay for this, its just net neutrality in another guise.

By: Ewan @ MIR

Ewan @ MIR — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:59:01 +0000

If every UK operator introduced that tomorrow, I think we'd definitely see this reducing in relevance, JD. But here's a question for you: I'm thinking about buying an Â£8 video compilation of Man Utd goals on my mobile. It's 56mb. So will that cost me Â£8? Or, will that put me over my 50mb/day allowance? If so, what am I going to be charged for the extra data? Will I still pay Â£8? Or will it be Â£8 plus Â£10 per meg? In which case that Â£8 video will cost me Â£68. Or will it be Â£4 per meg over the 50mb limit? In which case that Â£8 video costs me Â£24 + Â£8 = Â£32.

But it's ok, I'm on o2, so I only pay Â£3.50 per meg. Or is it Â£3? Or is it Â£2? No, I'm sure it's Â£1.50 per meg. No wait, it's fair use, isn't it? Or... is it? Who?

What?

Screw it. I won't bother buying it. I'll... just... I'll just wait.

That scenario is going to keep on happening, happening and thrice happening until we get some kind of clear policy. Ergo I really like the transparency of the mBlox offering. Any moves from the operators to fix this issue would be highly useful.

By: JD

JD — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:39:56 +0000

Aren't most mobile operators moving to a flat rate model on mobile data? 99p a day for up to 50MB, or a flat rate for the month like on the iPhone. I'm not sure this is all that relevant any more, or at least it will be reducing in relevance over the next 2 or 3 years.