Under the new plan, the app provider would be able to pay AT&T for bandwidth consumed by app customers, instead of the app users having the usage billed against their service plans.
In some ways the plan is analogous to the way Amazon.com has been paying the bandwidth charges to deliver content to Kindle e-readers. When users buy a book, newspaper or magazine, the delivery cost (bandwidth) is part of the retail cost of buying the product.
Some app providers will be leery, since the practice is one more way app and content providers could wind up paying delivery networks when consumers use their apps or services.
That might be quite a valuable feature for consumers who want to purchase mobile video content, for example.
AT&T to enable toll-free bandwidth
AT&T to enable toll-free bandwidth
1 comment:
Gary, You are exactly right about the benefits of toll free bandwidth. Box Top Solutions in Silicon Valley has been working on a technology called FreeBand for about 18 months that enables content and service providers to voluntarily agree to pay for broadband to encourage end users to access their products and services. End users download applications to their mobile devices (phones, tablets, laptops) and then use the application to access online education, tele-health, job training, government benefits, entertainment, goods, etc. without being charged for bandwidth by the underlying carrier because the provider of the services/goods is paying instead. Box Top believes that this is the only feasible way to help the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who lack sufficient broadband access, because FreeBand relies on a sustainable business model rather than government subsidies or surcharges. For the unconnected, FreeBand applications provide a way to overcome the hurdle of costly committed monthly charges. For users who currently have a data plan, FreeBand applications allow them to exceed data caps without paying overage charges and/or allow them to subscribe to cheaper data plans since the FreeBand applications will reduce the amount of bandwidth they need to buy each month.
It is not clear whether AT&T will be using an app-based approach (FreeBand's patented technology) or instead attempting to do the monitoring and metering in-network using its own billing system. Regardless, AT&T's announcement validates the value of third party paid bandwidth and the Box Top team believes it signals that the market is clearly moving in this direction.
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