Regardless of what we as individuals would like, some kind of control is inevitable on today's mobile networks.
I hope we can all agree that the subscriber, in mobile parlance, is as always king and as a customer should always be put first. What I mean by this is that their best interests, as individuals should be at the heart of any policy to control or cap traffic. This control should be dynamic and relevant to the current or near real-time network conditions and should be proportional.
E.g. why enforce a subscriber cap at 4am because a bandwidth download limit had been reached the day before at 7pm? Likewise, why throttle a user at 2am when the link to the Internet is operating at ~%5 utilisation?
Traditional solutions to this age-old problem have typically relied on applying a blanket DPI policy at the current Gi (3G) but soon to be SGi (4G/LTE) interface that affects all users regardless of what they did, didn’t or may do.
Larry Roberts, a founding father of the Internet has a solution to this question. The only pragmatic approach that comes close to providing a solution for the mobile Internet is from Dr. Roberts Company, Anagran Inc.
The successful Mobile Internet Operators will follow a path that provides the most relevant customer experience. These MNO’s will require a technology that can accommodate the mobile Internet in the most accommodating way.
Innovations whether we know it or not always change the world we live in. The innovation for the Mobile internet Generation will need to understand how we interact with the world and make it as transparent as possible.
The network is built and evolving, create the experience and they will come/follow/like/tweet.
We're going through this discussion in Canada. What hs come out is it costs the providers very little for the amount of traffic that exceeds the cap (ours is much lower, especially since Netflix arrived) and the problem is a timing (when the traffic arrives), not a traffic issue- amount.
I understand the issue. The problem I had with a desktop app is that you would then have to create so many of them. Its either that or deal with the compatibility issues between OSes, browsers, etc.
"Just a transparency suggestion....How about an LCD panel on the front of your cable/dsl modem with important status like that."
I'd rather see a desktop app. My router is in the basement and I have multiple computers in different rooms, so having to go look at it would be seriously inconvenient.
I just attended an LR Webinar on the subject that was very relative and well attended and received;
"Using Policy to Get Personal"
It is in the process of being archived on LR.
The title doesn't do it justice.It is really about the many, many ways to price and control/throttle traffic and inform the subscribers.
"While policy control initially enabled traffic management and security, it is increasingly being used to create more personalized services. User-centric pricing and charging models, services based on consumer profiles, tiered service packages and premium priority services are among the many options available for making services more personal."
Just a transparency suggestion....How about an LCD panel on the front of your cable/dsl modem with important status like that. That way I don't have to log into anything to check. I recognize that this defeats the 3rd party thing, but there is a whole lot of stuff that would be much easier with a slightly better UI on a modem to tell the consumer what is going on.
Comcast now uses a throttling method for cable modem services and I can't say I've really noticed when i'm being throttled, but it would be nice to know when I was. How about a flashing red light? ;)
I'm okay with excessive use caps if they are super generous and are really targeted to the heaviest of users, but not as wild about the idea of overage charges. So far I've been well under my monthly 250GB ceiling, but to Michelle's point I would like it to be easier to know how much I'm consuming. As it stands, Comcast makes me sign in to their portal and then remember where that info is posted. A widget I can run in the background or execute from the desktop would be simpler. I've heard from several other Comcast subs who have had trouble hunting down the consumption meter.
Then there's the point of meter accuracy. AT&T has apparently run into some accuracy issues before its new system goes live in May.
I don't mind having a data cap - that's fine. But I'd like an easier way to know how much data I use. Why make users go out of their way to find out how much data they've used? It would be good to get simple text alerts about my data usage as I go, not just when I'm approaching the cap.
I favor caps -because it is simple to understand by a subscriber.
Any form of BW throttling will be blamed for traffic and authorization (TWC iPAD) congestion throughout the network which the ISP/provider may not be able to control/manage.
With Caps there will be a marketing push to say, "My Caps are bigger than your Caps."
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a founding father of the Internet has a solution to this question. The only pragmatic approach that comes close to providing a solution for the mobile Internet is from Dr. Roberts Company, 
