Uncapping data: Vendors explore alternatives to mobile Internet quotas

"I may want premium service for one application but standard service for others," Poretsky said. "Video is a good example where we're going to pay a premium for a specific type of service."

THE DREADED POWER USER

Implementing any kind of tiered or dynamic billing in the US is difficult because operators have set expectations for unlimited service, said Marty Smuin, president of the Americas for wireless consultancy Aircom. While many data plans out there aren't truly unlimited because of implicit or explicit data caps, there is an expectation carrying over wireline broadband that customers are free to consume as much data as they please.

"The US is caught up on the all-you-can-eat model," Smuin said. "People are becoming grandfathered in to their plans. They hold on to a plan forever. Once you get into an all-you-can-eat model, the only thing you can do to differentiate is bring the price down."

The biggest concern for operators are power users, customers that sign up for a $20 to $30 a month smartphone plan or $60 laptop card plan and start gobbling up network capacity as they would on a home broadband connection. Some operators have dealt with power users by cutting them off when they cross a certain threshold or charging exorbitant rates for data use over their caps, but Vodafone has started experimenting with soft caps. Using Camiant's policy servers, Vodafone Hungary is dialing back bandwidth to 2G speeds for customers who exceed their monthly data quotas, allowing those customers to keep their network access for the remainder of month though at a reduced performance level. Furthermore, 2G speeds are only enforced during times of network congestion, so even if a user has exceeded the monthly data cap, he still gets 3G speeds if there's plenty of room on the network.

These new types of hybrid unlimited-restricted models are gaining prominence with operators who are looking for something in between per-byte-billing and unlimited plans, Smuin said. One of Aircom's customers, Vodacom Tanzania, is using Aircom's Optima network tools to implement dynamic tariffing, which identifies under-utilized areas of the network in real time, allowing it to heavily discount data charges to users in off-peak periods or in uncongested regions of the network. Such a model would allow operators to introduce data plans similar to the voice plans of today, which offer a bucket of megabytes each month for times of heavy network usage but unlimited service during off-peak hours and other special cases.