sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH
1 edit | The carrier coup must be stopped
This was the most enlightening article I've read on telecommunications in a long time. I highly recommend you all read this. There are some annoying grammar mistakes and a couple of mistakenly omitted sentences, but it's still well worth the read.
Basically it says consumers can be duped into spending more on products when their options are complex. The simpler the contract, the easier it is for a consumer to make a rational choice for the cheaper and better services. Thus the carriers who offer multi year contracts with subsidized phones, and capped monthly data plans with overages, profit on consumers' confusion by doing things such as collecting overage charges that come unexpectedly to consumers.
The author's solution is to do what Amazon did with the Kindle, where the device manufacturers offer their products with wireless service already attached to the device. The terms of the service are negotiated between the device maker and carrier, keeping the purchase process much simpler for the consumer. The device makers would also be able to "squeeze carriers for costs" because carriers would have to go through them to get their service to the consumers.
Anyways, this is all speculation and we all know the carriers would never, ever, *ever* let this happen in the US. Still I thought it was a fascinating article. |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·Comcast
| said by sonicmerlin  :Anyways, this is all speculation and we all know the carriers would never, ever, *ever* let this happen in the US. Statement is wrong. The Kindle IS sold this way.
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RR User
@rr.com
| reply to sonicmerlin
People don't know how much data is on the Web sites they normally visit. They can't calculate the trade-off between the netbook discount and the monthly mobile broadband charges. That remark from the article hits the nail on the head.
Customer's don't know how much bandwidth they use. They don't know if 5 GB is their monthly average or 200 GB. 99% of the people are clueless about that.
The Kindle pricing scheme works because the content viewable on it is tightly controlled. Users aren't Torrenting or using Hulu. They aren't FPS gaming or using VOIP. The bandwidth is used for browsing and downloading electronic books. All of that means the bandwidth used is pretty controllable and consistant. It also means some network performance stats aren't that important to the Kindle, like latency or jitter. So all the Kindle users need per month is a gigabyte or two of "best effort" service.
Once BT, Hulu, FPS games, or VOIP shows up on any meaningful percentage of Kindles, the included bandwidth isn't going to cover it and you'll see monthly charges. |
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