You may skip to the point I start explaining why the idea of capped internet is not advisable
Recently, I have been looking for FAST internet access for my house and of course the first point of call is the Telecommunication Companies (MTN, Vodafon, Tigo etc) [Known as Telcos from here on wards]. Well, I entered their offices to inquire about the various deals they offer for FAST internet access for domestic use. You know how these customer relations guys/girls talk about their products; throwing the words "very", "revolutionary", "better", "new technology", "fibre optic", "special" and the like all over the place to make you think they have got the best internet technology in the world or at least Ghana. But I have my own requirements and expectations though. What am I looking for? You know the first condition, FAST. The second ... UNLIMITED. I don't understand why I pay to use the internet for 30 days and yet when I use a certain amount of data, I am cut off from the using the internet I paid for. Even more annoying is if you don't finish using the data bundle, the remaining is snatched from you!(Not all the Telcos do this by the way). Why am I not given the freedom to get as much as I want for a time frame I have paid. This idea of Bundles and time expiration actually makes you pay twice for one commodity you bought. Remember that time is money. So you pay for the time(30 days) and then you pay for the Data bundle. Let me explain further with an example. Lets say you see a list of bundles with time bounds like...
| Days | Data Bundle | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 1 week | 2GB | 12.00ghc |
| 30 days | 3GB | 30.00ghc |
| 30 days | 6GB | 45.00ghc |
So looking at this table, when you purchase 2GB of Data bundle to be spent in 1 week and the bundle finishes before the week, what is left of the days is actually cost you have incurred (Time ~= Money). That means you paid more than what you think you for, being the 12.00ghc in our case.
Now why do I think Bundles don't make Sense.
Well, every Internet Service Provider knows the max bandwidth they can provide its users. Every ISP knows the number of customers they have. An ISP just with a little effort can get an idea how their users consume data on a daily basis. So instead of capping data usage, why not redefine your pricing.
Pricing Redefinition
First, with the knowledge of the max bandwidth an ISP can provide a user, you estimate how much data that is going to be used say a week i.e if the user uses the internet to its full capacity (using all the bandwidth for that time period). So if for instance given a max bandwidth of 2048Kb/s for a week a user can consume a Maximum of ...
Note that 1 Byte = 8 bits ... The bandwidth is given in bits per second
So if for every second, 2048Kbits of data is consumed, then it translates to 256KBytes used every second.
So for a week (604800 secs) you would have consumed 154828800KBytes ~ 155GBytes [Remember this is when you are using the internet 24/7 @ full Bandwidth {which is rarely the case}]
So even with these values, an ISP can give you the price of a data bundle 155GBytes but tell you its unlimited because you are MOST LIKELY (99.99999999...) not going to get there in a week. Why? Because your max Bandwidth provided will not allow that.
But this where the ISP has to get smarter about the pricing. Of course charging a customer the worth of 155GBytes of data for a week would be outrageous. Virtually no one would sign up for that. However, there may just that one customer who would pay to have absolutely unlimited and fast internet. Well the pricing strategy doesn't end here.
Having the information about the consumption rate of your users become useful here.
- One way is to find out about the average consumption for your sample of users chosen. With this information, you can further reduce the ceiling for the Max data usage for a specific time range from the absolute Max data usage based on bandwidth.
- Another is to find an average of the lowest data consumption and highest data consumption among your sample users and charge the worth of this average but call it unlimited and make it truly unlimited. Why?
Even though it is true that the data worth of the unlimited deal is attainable but the users, there is also the case of some users not getting to this particular "safe" data limit you have set. So while some users would be able to get past this limit, some will under use it too and the difference between the two can offset cost incurred by the provider. So in the eyes of your customers, they are receiving unlimited data package, however in the eyes of the ISP, they are being charged the right amount and all is just fundamental management of bandwidth. I think what would make sense to sell as part of the time to use the unlimited bundle is the bandwidth since there is a relationship between the time to use the internet and the bandwidth at which you use it. In that way, you would not be paying for two disparate things just to get internet connection.
Aside: I know you might be thinking... Why don't I choose Tigo, they are unlimited ... Are They Really? Tigo advertises to be unlimited however the details of that unlimited deal is that streaming and downloading is CAPPED. Only browsing webpages is free and even that, the bandwidth is heavily reduced when your bundle for streaming and downloading is reached. At this point, you are better off assuming the data is finished and just topping up than trying to use what is left of the "unlmited" package they advertise. Apart from Tigo which makes an attempt at unlimited internet, I have not come across any Telco based ISP that offer unlimited internet.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/17425221736/cable-industry-finally-admits-that-data-caps-have-nothing-to-do-with-congestion.shtml
Current Reasons Telcos Give for Capping internet is not convincing enough
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On this note, let me actually put my request on board. I am searching for very FAST and UNLIMITED data bundled internet connection in Ghana, post paid/prepaid, and is affordable. If you know of any, put it in the comment below. Thanks
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