charging by the packet seems like one of the great features of i-mode.
i'd be shocked if they went to a per-minute system.
Jamie, since you research this stuff, you might be amused by this behavior:
a friend of mine uses Sprint which offers WAP. he has a 500 minute/month plan,
for which he pays a fixed amount.
at first he was disinterested in the WAP feature, dabbling with it only occasionally.
but now, when he's close the end of his billing cycle, he finds out how many minutes
he has left, and has a binge WAP surfing session to use it up!
(perhaps easier than just calling dozens of your friends)
-rolf
"Cattell, Jamie - RI Japan" <j.cattell@research-int.com> writes:
> I would say at the moment per byte charging is more attractive for certain
> applications. Once people start downloading multimedia and other heavy
> contents that is bound to change.
>
> DoCoMo have already stated that they will re-think the packet charges in the
> light of 3G and multimedia as it simply won't be worth DL`ing the content.
>
> Conversely per minute charges can really dis-incent users from using certain
> services.
>
> At my company we carry out research of mobile users using mobile web surveys
> and we find better co-operation rates due to packet charging which does not
> penalise users for taking their time to carefully answer questions and
> allows us to precisely calculate the burden to the respondent and compensate
> appropriately. Whilst most fixed line users continue to pay exorbitant per
> minute charges, the packet charges and "light" nature of the mobile Internet
> are compelling reasons to use it.
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Received on Fri Jan 19 11:00:38 2001