EU Helps Preventing Mobile Bill Shock

One of the more trendy traffic control applications is Bill Shock Prevention. Many of us have experienced this shock when the a  thousands dollars bill follows a 3-day trip - whether you are on business or just a UK student spending a month in Paris resulting-in a £8,000 charges for mobile Internet (see here).

The EU decided to help consumers preventing that (in addition to other similar regulations), by allowing subscribers to put a limit on their data charges with a default of €50, and a warning when 80% of the limit has been reached. This starts today, March 1st (see here)

"From today, all Europeans making calls or sending texts with their mobiles can experience the EU's single market without borders. The roaming-rip off is now coming to an end thanks to the determined action of the European Commission, the European Parliament and all 27 EU Member States"

- Viviane Reding,
Commissioner for Information Society and Media 

As far as traffic control is concerned, this is a classical application that goes nicely with similar functions such as byte-cap limits (quota) or fair use. In the current mobile network architecture, it is implemented with the use of a PCRF (Policy and Charging Rules Function) system. In perfect timing, Bridgewater Systems announced today a customer win for their solution in this space - see Major European Operator Goes Live with Bridgewater PCRF - here.

Online Debate on Net-Neutrality

Debatepeia opened an online debate arena for Net-Neutrality. Available here.

Debatepedia is "the Wikipedia of pros and cons". Its mission is to "clarify public debates and improve decision-making globally". Debatepedia is a project of the International Debate Education Association (IDEA), a 501c3 non-profit. It utilizes the same wiki technology powering Wikipedia to engage you and other citizen-editors in clarifying public debates by centralizing them into a single pro/con encyclopedia. This helps you, other citizens, and leaders better weigh ALL the pros and cons, develop positions, and make more informed decisions, votes, etc... And this significantly improves democracy and people's lives. Get started Join our Facebook group Debatepedia is endorsed by the National Forensic League.