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RE: Questions on the Draft
i hope you don't mind my tossing these back on the mailing list... comments
below
Tim Clifford, President and CEO
Lacuna Network Technologies, Inc.
5257 River Road #635
Bethesda, MD 20816
office: 703.812.8560 fax 703.812.8571
mobile: 301.674.0373 email: tjc@lacunanet.net
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Venning, Roger [mailto:Roger.Venning@team.telstra.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 3:21 AM
> To: 'tim clifford'
> Subject: RE: Questions on the Draft
>
>
>
> Hi Tim,
>
> market segmentation is hardly my forte, but I guess that on the
> whole, flat
> rate plans appeal more to consumers. I think the key thing is that we are
> still talking about communication. In the current cellular situation,
> customers are prepared to pay for voice-minutes effectively. In
> the future,
> they will still be prepared for the level of communication
> offered. I guess
> the thing is that currently on the Internet, a lot of the information you
> retrieve really has little value to you.
while I agree with the comments, I think the point is about the difference
between voice and data. this is likely ground that's been covered many times
in the past 10-15 years (after all the x.25 community felt like they had the
market covered ;-) but the context of mobility requires a new review. voice
has an (dis)advantage of being real time, which drives a charge for use
model; data is not necessarily real time and with voip/sip/instant msging we
have yet another category....
>
> I'm not really certain how many parallels we can make between current
> wireline Internet service provision (and the associated pricing
> models), and
> a future Wireless Internet. The underlying cost structure is fundamentally
> different - the airwaves are surely a scarce resource one we have a mass
> market, although admittedly to begin with capacity might not be such a
> problem.
...but imho the discussion about services and charging is critical, I expect
the current standards may have to evolve significantly to support the
eventual market demand. the sooner we can work through possible scenarios
for both services and charging and see the real demand the better/sooner the
services and technology will happen.
i recall by the way that the x.25 charging models were based on usage, so
there is precedent for charging data by use. maybe not a great precedent
since it appears that IP has scaled rather better than x.25.
tc
>
> Roger.
>
> Roger.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Roger Venning \
> Technologist \ A new .sig for a new millenium
> Telstra Research Labs \
> <roger.venning@team.telstra.com> Phone: +61 3 9253 6295
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: tim clifford [SMTP:tjc@lacunanet.net]
> > Sent: Friday, 29 June 2001 12:13 pm
> > To: Venning, Roger
> > Subject: RE: Questions on the Draft
> >
> > Roger
> > it would be interesting to understand a bit more about the
> characteristics
> > of the users that are paying the flat rate. some users have more
> > sensitivity to price than others. of course one sort of "test" will be
> > about the overall uptake of the service.
> >
> > tc
> >
> > Tim Clifford, President and CEO
> > Lacuna Network Technologies, Inc.
> > 5257 River Road #635
> > Bethesda, MD 20816
> > office: 703.812.8560 fax 703.812.8571
> > mobile: 301.674.0373 email: tjc@lacunanet.net
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-more@ops.ietf.org
> [mailto:owner-more@ops.ietf.org]On Behalf
> > > Of Venning, Roger
> > > Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 9:30 PM
> > > To: 'James Kempf'; Chris.Burke@motorola.com; more@ops.ietf.org;
> > > takeshita@dcl.docomo-usa.com
> > > Subject: RE: Questions on the Draft
> > >
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: James Kempf [mailto:James.Kempf@Sun.COM]
> > > > Sent: Friday, 29 June 2001 1:23 AM
> > > > To: Chris.Burke@motorola.com; more@ops.ietf.org;
> > > > takeshita@dcl.docomo-usa.com
> > > > Subject: Re: Questions on the Draft
> > > >
> > > <snip software quality measurement via defects per kLOC argument>
> > > > In a similar way, billing based on the number of packets is a simple
> > > > way to quantify access charges, but it fails to take into account
> > > > qualitative factors, such as that users (in the US at least) don't
> > > > like to pay that way and have historically avoided using services
> > > > that have such models.
> > > >
> > > > So if you want to design a service that people want to use, it is
> > > > probably a good idea not to charge by packet, and instead figure
> > > > out other ways to make additional money from the basic access.
> > > >
> > > > This may be different in Japan and Europe, however.
> > > >
> > > > jak
> > > >
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > > James,
> > >
> > > for an example of consumer acceptance of pricing models
> outside the US:
> > >
> > > in Australia, Internet style access is split between pay per hour of
> > > connected time (dial-in), flat rate (dial in & broadband) & volume
> > charged
> > > (broadband, permanent dial-in), and all models are accepted.
> There has a
> > > been a bit of a furore in Australia recently on download limits
> > > specified in
> > > "acceptable use policy" that is associated with flat-rate
> > > broadband access.
> > > As an indication, volume charged fixed connections have tarriffs
> > generally
> > > in the vicinity of US$0.10/MB. I have seen a consumer GPRS
> offering here
> > > that had a rate of ~US$10/MB for the first 200kB in a session and
> > ~US$5/MB
> > > thereafter. Consumers (apart from those focussed on "content piracy")
> > are
> > > comfortable with plans that revolve around a flat rate portion
> > > for eg. 250MB
> > > free and volume charged thereafter.
> > >
> > > Roger.
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Roger Venning - Technologist - Telstra Research Laboratories
> > >
> > > For a successful technology, reality must take
> > > precedence over public relations, for Nature
> > > cannot be fooled. Richard Feynman
> > >