Tråd: Hot topic at Mobile World Congress - How to charge for data traffic
How can telecom operators create a sustainable business model that generates new revenue in the future? We asked Verizon at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Verizon has made this journey and pioneered with introducing a new business model in the US, where they charge for data traffic.
The discussion regarding how to create future revenue and be able to charge for the increasing usage of data traffic is a hot topic when the telecom industry meets up in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. We met up with Greg Dial, Sales & Marketing Director at Verizon and asked about their new price plan that was launched some months ago.
Why did you launch a new price plan?
- We saw a huge increase in the usage of data traffic when we shifted from 3G to 4G. That empowered our customers to use more data, but at the time we had a model were we offered the traditional meter price plans charging for voice and did not earn enough money out of the data traffic.
What does your new price plan look like?
- The new price plan is a new model where customers can share a pool of data within the family or amongst other users. They can also use an unlimited number of calls and text messages. To the new price plan, you can add up to ten devices, meaning not only your mobile phones but also tablets, mifi devices and it also offer to add the Samsung Galaxy camera to the common pool of data. We also have an online tool recommending what amount of included data the customer should choose, depending on their usage.
What reactions did you get from your customers?
- The offering was very well received amongst families and other groups of people using a lot of data. It was simple, flexible and we had positive reactions. A short time after the launch of the consumer offering, we launched an offering to our SME customers were they can add up to 25 lines and share among 1GB to 10GB of data.
What did this mean for your business?
- We have had a good development in our ARPU (average revenue per user) during the last 8 months since we introduced our Share-offering to the market. We are actually starting to look into a new way of measuring the revenue, which is called ARPA (average revenue per account), since the old way is no longer applicable.