Carrier Data Plans, Fair Pricing and Mobile Advertising

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As the carriers dangle 4G and tiered data plans in front of consumers, confusion reigns again. Since Verizon and AT&T have all but removed “all you can eat plans,” should customerrs choose lower-priced plans with greater risk of overages or higher rate plans protecting them from going over?

Those in mobile advertising, like Delly Tamer writing in Venturebeat, writes about customer dissatisfaction with pricing plans. But he doesn’t address whether carrier data plans reduce mobile advertising growth due to CTR reluctance.

In February, 2010, I wrote a MobileBeyond piece about Google Voice, Skype and carrier data charges that confuse carriers’ customers. I concluded that simplifying charges is critical as feature phone users switch to smartphones and data plans.

Unlike other metered industries, like utility companies, U.S. carriers created a pricing quagmire. “Buckets of minutes,” Cingular’s “rollover minutes,” Verizon’s $1.99 per megabyte charge, unlimited, tiered and prepaid data plans slowly emerged. All the changes should have killed off the golden goose. That customers complained but still paid their bills astounds me.

If carriers from the get-go would have adopted metered pricing similar to electric and gas utilities–and ditch the penny-pinching extras–mobile consumers would have experienced increased satisfaction.

Electrical utilities, for example, trained home owners that their average monthly bill would rise in the Winter as gas usage increases, go down in the Spring and rise in the Summer for households using AC. Mobile carriers should have implemented a similar strategy, reducing consumer data pricing concerns.

Carrier Data Plans and Mobile Advertising

As a result, the mobile advertising industry not only has to write outstanding creative with great offers to convince consumers to click. They must deal with mobile users who worry about voice and data charges.

Simplifying Mobile Phone Costs

Here’s an example of a an equitable carrier data plan:

That’s it. Simple, reasonable charges for voice, text and data. While this plan will not resolve all mobile user pricing complaints, once consumers better understand their usage and bills, customer satisfaction should gradually increase.

Tagged as: Mobile Advertising, mobile data plans