Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Mobile and Cable Companies Try to Profit from Over the Top Apps

Mobile operator 3 Hong Kong will offer its subscribers a WhatsApp Roaming Pass for $8 ($1 USD) a month that gives them unlimited access to WhatsApp services without counting it against their data caps, or a $48 ($6.19 USD) daily pass offering unlimited WhatsApp use and 5MB of service in 78 destinations around the world.

You might wonder why a mobile service provider would promote a service that competes directly with its own messaging service. The answer is that so many people are doing so that 3 might as well try and extract some revenue from the service in an indirect way, namely by allowing usage of WhatsApp without counting the usage against a customer's data cap.


Time Warner Cable, for its part, is currently sending a mailer to internet-only customers, suggesting that they should upgrade their broadband speeds for a better Netflix experience and offering to throw in a whole year of free TV as a bonus.

That's one example of a service provider trying to generate revenue indirectly from an over the top application. 

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