Recent Trends in Policy Control [Part 2] (with examples)

 

This part is dedicated to a recent article by Graham Finnie (picture), Chief Analyst, Heavy Reading, covering "new pricing ideas I've been compiling in connection with Heavy Reading's research on policy management".

See "Mobile Data Packaging: A Policy-Driven Revolution?"  - here.

Graham lists the following cases:

• Movistar Colombia has created five mobile data packages, including one that offers only email, one just for IM, one for social networks – all at low price points.
   
  
• Saudi Telecom Co. (STC) has built a "prayer time" offer, enabling subscribers to block access to the Internet, or to specific IP-based applications (video, chat, voice, gaming, etc.) during prayer times.
   
  
• Poland's Play increased bandwidth, removed volume limits and removed restrictions on P2P traffic between midnight and 9 a.m.
   
  
• Russia's MegaFon [See "MegaFon Deployed Cisco ASR-5000 for Service Personalization" - here] offers unlimited access to some URLs, event-based charging and varying speeds based on protocol and usage profile.
   
  
• In Kuwait, Zain Group (see "Zain Kuwait Prepares for Fair Use Policy" -  here) offers two contrasting prepaid data packages -- one for customers on limited budgets with a low connection speed, and one for those who are mainly looking for occasional high-speed access.
   
  
• In Sweden, 3 Group (See "3 Scandinavia Deploys Procera New 30G DPI Appliance" - here) offers a variety of on-the-fly promotions, including QoS uplift for loyalty and periodic free boosts in data speed.
   
  
• Multiple operators now offer unlimited access to Facebook and other social networking sites within volume-delimited services ; Multiple operators waive data volume metering in off-peak periods, e.g. at night ; Some operators offer "shared wallet" services, in which allocations are shared across different devices or family members, for example ; One operator lets customers choose five Internet sites or URLs and get unlimited access to them.