Study: Carriers Are Turning Into Cloud Providers

Unlimited pricing plans have served their purpose in getting customers used to mobile data, and now network operators need to switch to tiered plans in order to capitalise on those users, according to a new report from IHS iSuppli.

Operators in mature markets such as North America and Europe are transforming themselves into mobile cloud providers, and tiered pricing plans are key to that strategy, the report found.

Cloud is king

The report predicted that, as a result, worldwide data services revenue will rise by 9.1 percent per year until 2015 – double the growth of voice revenue.

Data revenue will rise to $337.9 billion (£210bn) by 2015, up from $218.1bn in 2010, and will account for 30 percent of revenues from wireless traffic, iSuppli predicted.

In the US, operators including T-Mobile USA, AT&T Wireless, MetroPCS and Leap Wireless have recently eliminated flat-rate data plans for smartphones, introducing tiered plans in their stead.

iSuppli said tiered plans are key to operators’ revenue strategies in a wireless world that will increasingly be dominated by broadband data.

“In the short term, tiered pricing provides operators with tremendous flexibility to encourage increased data usage among average mobile broadband data users, while deriving more revenue from power users that engage in greater consumption of network resources,” said IHS principal analyst Jagdish Rebello, in a statement. “In the longer term, tiered pricing will allow operators to take advantage of and become relevant players in the new paradigm of cloud storage and cloud computing.”

Initially most mobile cloud growth will come from consumers, who have less stringent needs than the enterprise, iSuppli said.

Consumer cloud services

The company pointed to Apple’s iCloud, Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive as the first steps toward an ‘Internet of things’ that will put the user at the centre of a network of devices accessing data and applications from cloud services.

Apple’s free iCloud service, introduced earlier this month, will sync user content and push it to various devices via the cloud. It is integrated with apps, ensuring automatic updates, and will keep folders automatically updated. In Apple’s new world, contacts, calendar and mail are now cloud-centric features, with new messages and updates pushed to associated devices. As expected by some pundits, this service effectively replaces MobileMe.

Apple is also offering Documents in the Cloud, which automatically uploads any documents from Apple’s productivity software (including Pages, Numbers and Keynote) to the Apple cloud; from there, the document can appear on other devices loaded with Apple’s software. Photos will be uploaded to the cloud, as well.

Apple users’ music has also been given the cloud treatment, via a revamped iTunes. A single click will download a particular song or album to all the user’s devices. For those with lots of music not purchased via iTunes – i.e., music burned onto your Mac from CDs – a new service, iTunes Match, will allow access to those songs via Apple’s cloud for $25 per year.