About 33% of operators globally are using revenue sharing models and partnerships with cloud-based content providers such as Rhapsody, Spotify and Deezer to offer mobile cloud services, according to a report by Allot Communications.
The report, Allot MobileTrends Charging Q2, 2012, reveals that 46% of operators offer value-based plans, with services like parental control or music streaming while LTE operators have embraced value-based pricing in a similar fashion as the 3G operators.
The report encompasses data plans and charging models for smartphones, tablets and dongles, and gives a snapshot of mobile data charging and overall statistics as well as real-world examples of some of the best charging models in use by operators.
Allot stated 32% of operators now offer paid WiFi access and have starting to recoup their losses on previously unbillable usage patterns while they also struggle to incorporate offloaded traffic into their policy control architecture.
Further, operators charging for tethering have doubled to 29% from 15% in the past nine months, revealing a rise in operator efforts to closely monitor and monetise the interminable surge in data consumption.
Allot Communications Marketing vice president Andrei Elefant said working with some of the world’s largest operators, the company found the need for pricing innovation to be a cross-regional requirement.
"We are currently helping our customers to evolve their data charging, focusing on providing consumers with more choice and operators with unique service differentiation," he added.
The report identified that application-based plans, multi-device plans, time-shifting and parental control plans are becoming more common, with intelligent value-based service plans across mobile networks becoming more wide spread.
Value-based charging enables operators to differentiate and charge for different application and content usage and compared with 3G and LTE pricing, the percentage of operators offering such plans is identical.
Allot concluded that despite the increased capacity available on LTE networks, operators are careful not to run into the congestion and declining ARPU issues now faced in 3G environments; instead, they are building value-based policy enforcement into their LTE networks from the get go.
