In the U.S. mobile business, there have been at least two major marketing concepts with huge impact on consumer adoption: "Digital One Rate," which erased the distinction between "local" and "domestic long distance," and "family plans," which principally are responsible for extending mobile penetration to most members of a family.
The next big innovation? At some point, "data one rate combined with a family plan." The reason? Mobile broadband growth will be retarded until the data access equivalent of a family plan can be bought. Sprint already has taken a step in this direction by offering an "Everything Data" plan supporting two lines with Web and e-mail connectivity plus 1,500 minutes of shared voice services for $130.
In fact, it is likely one can carry the concept just a bit further and create "data one rate family plans" that simply allow some consumers to buy a single broadband plan that supports all family members, whether in mobile or fixed mode, for a single rate. Executives at AT&T have been talking conceptually about unifying wired and wireless broadband as well, but the company hasn't actually launched anything like that.
In principle, the idea is a simple extension of family plans, buckets of minutes or text messaging plans already in widespread use.
There simply is going to be high consumer resistance to buying separate broadband connections for every connected mobile device.
Clearwire has been talking about casual use plans, which likewise is a step in the right direction AT&T might also be looking at some transaction-based billing scheme that would support multiple Internet-connected devices. There won't be a marketing "big bang" on the order of Digital One Rate or family plans until carriers decide to get just that serious about mass adoption of broadband services.
No comments:
Post a Comment