TeliaSonera Comes To Its VoIP Senses

The Swedish-based telecommunications giant TeliaSonera has taken my advice and will opt for raising data prices rather than attempting to charge for OTT VoIP usage. Ok, maybe it wasn’t my advice they listened to (haha) but still, it’s nice to see that they decided not to go any further down the path they had laid out earlier this year.

While large carriers obviously must find some way to face the fact that traditional voice is vastly overpriced and its revenues must inevitably decline, I have been amazed at the apparent willingness to analyze, and block/charge for particular types of OTT traffic. Even in a world where net neutrality is dead and buried, it’s an unnecessarily complex and antagonistic business model that begs to go down in flames.

But matching data pricing to the value the bits bring to customers and to the costs of providing it — that’s simple and obvious. There’s absolutely no need to fear being a ‘dumb pipe’ if one is a well paid for it.

We have gone too far down the path of valuing the application and devaluing the infrastructure that delivers it.  Actually, it’s the application that’s the easy part, else we wouldn’t have mobile apps multiplying like well-fed tribbles while the number of last mile options for most people remains countable on one hand.

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Categories: ILECs, PTTs · VoIP · Wireless