The Wall Street Journal reports
that AT&T is working on a new service that will allow developers of
mobile apps and content providers to pay for users data usage charges
to the wireless carrier.
John Donovan - AT&T's network and
technology head provided the details of the service to WSJ at the
Mobile Congress 2012 that kicked off today. He compared the service to
the toll-free calling for mobile broadband.
Last week, a study revealed that messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook (Messenger) may have cost carriers $13.9 billion in lost SMS revenues in 2011.
So it is not surprising to see carriers like AT&T trying to figure
out new ways to generate revenue from the data traffic to augment the
loss in revenue from the traditional sources of income.
Wall Street Journal reports:
"A feature that
we're hoping to have out sometime next year is the equivalent of 800
numbers that would say, if you take this app, this app will come without
any network usage," Mr. Donovan said on the sidelines of a
mobile-industry conference here.
It's far from
clear how willing technology companies would be to pay wireless carriers
for data use. Mr. Donovan said there was interest from companies who
could use the feature to drum up new business from customers wary of
using data-heavy services like mobile video.
Donovan believes that content
publishers could use the service as an incentive to customers to
download a movie without eating into their monthly data limits. He
compared it to free shipping offered by online retailers. In this case,
the customer would pay the regular price for the movie, while the cost
of the data usage for downloading the movie will be paid by the app
developer or content publisher to the carrier.
While AT&T it sounds good from a
customer point of view as the cost of the data usage for downloading the
movie will be paid by the content publisher, we've a creepy feeling
that the cost will be ultimately passed on to the customer and it would
be like paying a tax for downloading content. It also sounds terrible
from developers point of view as it will be become even more expensive
to develop and support an app, which will hurt us as customers as it
could stifle innovation.
Do you think AT&T's new service will be good for customers?
[via WSJ]
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