LTE flat rate or pay for what you use

Speaking at the LTE World Summit in Amsterdam Ken Wirth, president LTE and 4G networks at Alcatel-Lucent, warned that Services and applications need to be launched in conjunction with LTE infrastructure, so the telecoms industry doesn’t experience the same problems it faced with the deployment of 3G – years of carrying voice applications eventually resulting in network issues when data finally took off.

“We can’t live with or without flat rate tariffs. If you don’t give consumers flat rate they won’t use the services, but with it they abuse it." said Wirth, according to Telecoms.

It appears that telecom vendors and operators are getting more concerned about LTE service plans as LTE deployments to become reality worldwide soon.

TeliaSonera is currently selling an introductory LTE network plan with unlimited downloads but by July, the operator plans to limit downloads to 30 gigabytes and charge 599 kronor for the service, almost twice the cost of its 20-gigabyte 3G plan.

“We feel it is important for our customers to have a choice,” Ms. Augustson had said earlier. Instead of all you can eat, the new industry mantra, she said, is: “You get what you pay for.”

Verizon CTO Dick Lynch had been eariler quoted by Engadget as saying that he doesn't see how they'll be able to offer an all-you-can-eat plan when the company's LTE network goes live over the course of the next few years, citing its open development initiative as a key reason -- it's losing control over what devices (and what kinds of devices) can get on its network, raising the odds that there'll be gadgets that incur particularly heavy use.

As mobile subscribers are increasingly using high-bandwidth multimedia and web services, LTE services plans may not be unlimited in the end as was expected earlier.

Service providers need to come up with cost effective pricing plans remain competitive in the market. Availibility of MiFi kind of devices would certainly make it more difficult.

source:LteWorld