Europe Goes to Mobile Data Tiering

The move from unlimited data service to tiered services seems to be catching everywhere, certainly in Europe:

• Yesterday, Vodafone's CEO, Vittorio Colao, said at Nokia World 2010 event, (reported by ISPReview, "Vodafone CEO Welcomes END of Unlimited Mobile Broadband Data Plans", here ; video - here):
  
  "The principle here must be that, a bit like motorways or hotels, every class of service needs to have its own price and customers must be able to pay for the level of service [they want]. Pricing should be adjusted to reflect the usage and load. We are approaching the end of the free era"We can also learn about the value of the mobile internet service to the subscribers by the following statistics presented by Mr. Colao:
  
  "Vodafone's total network is now capable of delivering peak download speeds of 14.4Mb, with 2Mb uploads .. a third of Vodafone's total customer base browses the mobile internet, another quarter play online games, 20% use email, 15% enjoy social networking services, 11% make use of maps (i.e. Google maps), 30% use it for business and video/music is the fastest growing area".
  
   [See also "Vodafone Germany LTE tiering plans: No P2P, No VoIP" - here]
   
• A new research, from Tariff Consultancy Ltd (TCL) - "MNO Trends in Europe 2010" (press release - here, info- here), finds that:
  
  "Overall, there are signs of more rational pricing being adopted, after the initial flurry of "all you can eat" data plans," commented Margrit Sessions. "Operators are now fine tuning their Mobile Broadband and mobile data smart phone propositions by launching a tiered approach. More education of the customer is needed but a more targeted data tariff plan has a greater prospect of making an economic return for the MNO. So the pricing trends are pointing towards a more sustainable business model for most operators which is a good sign for the future in what is still a mature market in Europe.
  
  Overall subscriber numbers have increased by over 4 million users across the 8 countries over the six month period to the end of June 2010 (or over 8 million users year on year)".

See also:  O2 (UK, here), Zain (Kuwait - here), Demon (UK, here), Leap Wireless (US, here), SoftBank Mobile (Japan, here), AT&T (US, here) and many more ...