I’m a big fan of browsing on the go phenomenon. So be a smartphones or laptops or a handy device. And during rush hours of travelling on Delhi Metro, despite patchy underground network, I find it reasonable to stay in touch with people across globe. It helps to be connected.
But when it comes to choosing a right data plan for my needs, I doubt, I’m no good in the making the best decision. There’re many reasons to this, but one prominent is the lack of clarity in data plan structures & usage. Despite my best efforts, I still struggle.
You may be the person, who is fed of skimming through lists of data plans, selecting your region, then choosing pre-post option and then finding it hard to digest the fact that there’re at least 15+ options available to choose from, depending on your consumption. But believe me, more options made life of data users a hell.
There’re two main reasons from where the confusion starts. First, how do you know how much data I’m consuming per day or per month? And what’s this charging rate of 2p/Kb or 3p/Mb means, once I consume all of my data limits?
Basically most of the users, who are pretty good at understanding per sec voice call billing structure find it hard to surf Internet on per Mb data unit model. Let’s assume you visit Facebook daily for 2 hours. While, FB looks to be a simple social media page, the usage per person varies. There’re some, who just browse & update their FB status, while others spend lots of time watching videos & chatting with friends. So for same page, you have different consumption patterns per user. And based on your surfing pattern, your data clock keeps on ticking. But it will be very hard to find how much exactly you consumed in terms of MB on Facebook and believe me it’s absurd even to find. Are you really bothered about those out-of-world MB units while spending times with your pals on FB? Only when, you see your data bills or quick expiry of prepaid data vouchers. It always comes as surprise.
Even if you visit operator’s data plan pages, the confusion is understandable. Let’s say, you are Airtel subscriber and you visit the page to choose data plan. There’re six of them for 3G prepaid subscribers, identified by six different names. Now, assuming you are going to consume a fixed amount of data by performing fixed set of activities like surfing for 30 min, 40 emails with attachments, video chat for 20 min and so on per day, the company will tell your approximate data consumptions based on your input activities on monthly basis. Let’s say it comes around 4 GB. So I should go with Rs 750 Data plan. But then what if, I don’t do these set of activities per day or what if I spend different amount of time for each of above activities based on my current needs or work nature or what if I find something interesting to do about on Internet in middle of the month or what if I email only simple texts or what if I watch lots of Netflix or Instagrams or Youtube all of a sudden? Will my 4 Gb data limit remain valid or should I change it?
Of course, same applies to other two telcos, namely Vodafone & Idea. As you have seen, the operator’s data usage calculator or data usage plan logic is based on fixed set of activities performed by users for either fixed amount of time or units per day. But as a user, you don’t mind sending your 41st email with attachment or video chatting 21 min per day. Your data plan needs to understand your usage instead of your operator has to confine your usage to set of activities. The lack of flexibility in data plans structure is really a frustrating aspect. And that could be the reason 3G data take up is quite slow in India.
And why only fixed set of consumption limits for all? Why only 300 MB, 500 MB, 1,2,3,4,5, 7, 10 GB consumption limits everywhere? Why can’t you make it more flexible for my data usage? I mightn’t consume all of my data or might finish all in a day or two. As each user has its own patterns, why can’t you remain flexible and tell me how much I consumed on the go. There’re certain weird plans also available for Rs 5 or Rs 10, who let you consume 30 MB or 40 MB or 10 MB of data, but how will I know that I’m going to consume 40 MB today? And why shall I trust you, when your message pops up telling all of a sudden that in past 10 mins I consumed 50 MB and I need to recharge immediately. How did it vanish so quickly? My money gone and I just sent 2 emails. Wow!
Arguably, lack of widespread coverage of new technologies like 3G/4G may be the cause, but operators also need to quickly address the data plan structure to best of simplification level for layman. Here are few of my suggestions:
1. Offer few but better plans: First telcos need to offer select few plans both in pre & post category or could be similar plans for both types of subscribers. Why go different? Let’s stop confusing users by offering more. More plan, more confusion, less choice and lesser will be the adoption/consumption.
2. Simplify & make plans clear: Once done, telcos need to simplify each of their plans. So instead of limiting to figure 300 MB or pay-as-you-go, and making it more complex by adding tag of 2p/kB after exceeding limit, what telcos can do is that put upper cap to each plan. So once you have subscribed to 1 GB plan and if your consumptions reach nearer to my upper cap, I would be notified and asked to take action. And pls don’t add those tags of few paisa/KB. I’m no way going to sit in my office to calculate my consumption based on that formula. That sounds absurd.
3. Bring more clarity towards consumption: Telcos need to bring more clarify towards consumption of data on different mobile devices. Each device has its own consumption patterns. So Laptop consumes more as compared to your Smartphone. Same is true for tablets and Kindles. Will I be consuming any data if I’m sitting idle? Internet web pages have tendency to send cookies or fetch your geographical information even though you are doing no activities. These things happen at background and many times over a day they consume most of your data plan. How do users know about these hidden things which are hitting their data?
4. Make it customized based on usage patterns: Can telcos bring more flexibility into their data plan structure? What if I do more of chatting today and less of emails? What if I stopped visiting Facebook in middle of month? Can my plan adjust with me? And how will I come to know about this? Can you have flexible billing cycles/limits?
5. Make it affordable: Arguably, data consumption is still costlier compared to voice calling, especially on 3G/4G. There’re reasons to this from telcos point of view at present, but despite limitations on making data cheaper, can you offer a really unlimited data plan at affordable price? What about higher consumption plan pricing? And if I have add, then those business travellers, who are hit of data roaming charges on BB devices, have you listened to their pain?
Telcos can argue with logic of offering few plans or even making it cheaper. Generally it’s against the free will of doing things at your own wish. And what if they are losing money on Skype Calling? Or even Whatsup messages or FB Status updates? No one is paying telcos for FB status update, then what? After all it’s a message and you can’t charge me for that, despite the fact that I’m using telco network resources to make connection.
At some of point these arguments seem valid telcos can’t deny the fact that very nature of Internet protocols make things harder for them to make data plans. While fixing consumption to unit of KB or MB, they have simplified their understanding of data consumption users don’t take things in same way. Your language of data consumption seems restrictive and opposite to what I’m supposed to do with Internet.
We are set on new revolution path. Data or Mobile Internet is going to be next big consumer in coming decade. Albeit slow, operators need to respond to demands of users to make data cheaper and consumption simpler. And if you really want to make money out of data, then please listen to those five points above. You might have just missed those.
