The occasional scrivener

Pricing opacity is hurting EU mobile data usage

Vodafone’s launch of a consumer 3G service yesterday put the finger on a very real problem: what does this cost?

As Russ found out, it’s not easy to discover how much this will cost the consumer. In my opinion, this fact is a bigger problem than the prices themselves.

As an example, I offer you an anecdote. No hard links or references, because that’s the point.

A while ago, a Swedish newspaper wrote an article saying that if you used your 3G phone as a broadband modem for office work — downloading email, surfing, maybe getting a document or two — your monthly bill would be more than 9,000 SEK (about $1,290).

The point of this is not whether it’s true. My strongest impression of how much mobile data will cost is that it’s obscenely expensive. And I haven’t seen anything from the carriers to dispel this.

If the pricing was up front, and you had a good way to check how much you owed, and felt you could get redress for outrageous bills, the carriers could charge quite a lot but still get customers.

For example, I use Tre.se’s service. Their portal sucks, but you can buy ringtones for 30 SEK, background pictures for 15 SEK, a location lookup for 2 SEK. The point is, I can make an informed decision whether this is worth it or not. By calling a service number I get an up-to-date status on my account standing, in voice and data. And it’s PAYG, so if I splurge I won’t have to deal with this at the end of the month.

Here’s my modest proposal for Vodafone:

• Free data traffic, within limits. Maybe you pay extra for this monthly. Flat-rate, essentially.

• If you want to buy premium content (footie scores, music, whatever) you pay what’s on the screen.

This way, Vodafone will make a fixed amount of money for all data users, as only a small percentage will max out their allotment. And they can make money on premium content and allow others to make money too, thus making the content more appealing.

They’ll also insensibly educate the user base about mobile data. There will be room to experiment, to have fun, and to tell friends about this cool new thing.

If they and other EU carriers don’t do this, however, and continue treating their customers like cattle to be squeezed for every last kB of data, then the US carriers and content providers will eat their lunch.

Update: Russell analyses the Vodafone webcast and leads me to make this amendment:

• Browsing is free, but only in the Live! area. Wander outside, and you pay GPRS rates per kB.

So it’s a subtle form of lock-in. Maybe aimed primarily at the content vendors, as in “look at all these captive users we have! How much would you pay to market your content to them?”

Updated on Saturday, 2024-11-13. Posted at 00:45, in the comm » mobile category. Comments [0]
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