Special fee for special you

Summary: Micro-Credit charges rumors are indeed the topic of the recent network hot discussion. Weibo has a lot of famous jokes, are from a variety of experts, and then by micro-blog netizens all play. Recently, a sentence-making game is a little bit interesting, since the logical original sentence of copyright is

The rumors of micro-credit charges are indeed the topic of the recent network debate.

Weibo has a lot of famous jokes, are from a variety of experts, and then by micro-blog netizens all play. Recently, a sentence-making game has a little meaning, "since ... On that ", the logical original sentence of all copyright is" since the message charges, micro-letter on the charges. " The rumors of micro-credit charges are indeed the topic of the recent network debate.

is texting and micro-mail the same thing? True, both can send information, but micro-letters also have voice, pictures, video and even social circles to share the function. Simply put, SMS is the function of the traditional function of mobile phone, and micro-letter is the function of smartphones, is the product of mobile Internet.

But in terms of fees, this is only the difference between the surface layer, the deep difference is in the operator. The biggest difference is that SMS can bring revenue to operators, and micro-letter is the network traffic, in the data package can not bring revenue to operators, but will significantly impact the original operators of SMS, MMS and call business, but also occupy the network traffic operators.

This is easy to understand, users increasingly through micro-letter communication, operators will naturally lose the SMS and call service revenue. Given that the micro-letter is already over 300 million, it seems reasonable to think that the operator suffers a loss and asks the user to pay. But wait a minute, the operator's losses should be made up by charging users. Let's leave the Chinese characteristics to look at the U.S. market.

2 billion message per day

Apple introduced the IMessage feature in 2011, allowing Apple users to send text messages between computers, tablets and mobile phones, and to charge network traffic without carriers. According to the latest data of January this year, imessage users are currently sending 2 billion messages a day. Since imessage can also send pictures and videos, this means that operators have reduced the revenue of SMS and MMS by 2 billion.

In fact, with the rise of mobile internet, the traditional communication function to network transfer has become a trend. In addition to imessage such as free text messages, there are WhatsApp, Kik such "original micro-letter." WhatsApp more low-key, but at the end of 2011, the Daily message volume reached 1 billion, now their users have reached nearly 400 million, believe that this figure should have a big increase.

This is only the mobile Internet impact operators of SMS and MMS business in one aspect. On the other hand, mobile internet telephony applications such as Google Voice, Skype, Viber, and Rabtel are also appearing, replacing traditional calls with cheap and even free calls. As long as there is a smartphone, as long as there is network traffic, operators of traditional text messages and calls, consumers can not be completely.

Take "industry conscience" Google's Google Voice as an example, the United States and Canada in the text and call are completely free of charge, and from the United States to call the international long-distance to China, only 2 cents per minute, less than RMB 1 cents 3. And the US's largest operator At&t's mobile phone if a monthly 4 dollars of international long-distance package, call to China is 0.15 per minute, 0.18 U.S. dollars, equivalent to about 1 yuan, is Google Voice 7-9 times. If you do not deal with the international set of direct dial, then the fee per minute is 3.49-3.52 U.S. dollars, Google is 175 times times the tariff!

Now that the U.S. economy is in a slump and unemployment is high, Americans know how to save money more than the Chinese do. Of all the American smartphone personal users around me, very few people will call the international long-distance phone directly with their mobile phones, and most of them will be dialed by a variety of applications.

The tide is hard to reverse

At the end of the year, Mavenir Bae, the US mobile solutions provider, commissioned the UK independent investigation agency, Mobile squared, to conduct a survey of 31 of the world's largest mobile operators. The survey found that more than 30% of operators said that Internet communications software has led to the decline in their calls and SMS revenues, and more than three-fourths of operators are worried about the impact of future mobile applications.

According to the survey, 32.3% of operators said their traffic (including text messages, video and voice calls) was down 11% to 20% for Internet communications applications, while 20% of operators even expected their traffic to shrink by 5-10 to 31% over the next 40% years.

The above data only shows that a variety of mobile Internet applications have also brought a huge impact on American operators, seriously affecting their traditional SMS and call business revenue. So why don't American operators and industry experts ask why WhatsApp, imessage and Google Voice should charge for texting and calling charges?

Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, said in an interview that the rise of such applications would lead to the rush of data packages, and that operators, as service providers in the data package business, actually profited from the data. He argues that WhatsApp is not the killer of texting.

In order to use imessage and WhatsApp, consumers have to choose a dozens of-dollar monthly data package, smartphone users need a monthly amount of data much more than the function of mobile phones, operators can get a lot of revenue. On the other hand, American consumers prefer to buy a contract smartphone from an operator, and in a two-year contract package, the operator gets more revenue than it loses because of various applications.

On the other hand, because the U.S. telecommunications market is a competitive market, if there are operators dare to raise fees for imessage and WhatsApp, may face in addition to the regulatory review, there are passionate class action, blood-driven lawyers will also be very happy to act as such litigation, Knock a punch from the operator. In addition, the loss of smartphone users will be the most feared by operators.

In fact, in the era of mobile internet, operators have been transformed from traditional communication service providers to network service providers. They are more like smartphone dealers and network plumbing. Whether the operator is willing, this trend has been irreversible, only to adapt to the trend of transformation of their own positioning, it is possible to survive in the market competition and development.

Pay is Tencent

Back in the Chinese market, the same mobile internet trend is impacting traditional operators, micro-letters, letters and other applications that erode their traditional business revenues. Only operators and industry experts from the traditional telecommunications thinking, put forward the famous "since ... On the "assertion.

Step back, if because of market characteristics, micro-letter really to be charged, then the pay is also Tencent. European broadband operators have also suggested that Internet content providers such as Google should pay additional fees as users use services such as Google YouTube to account for too much network traffic. But foreign operators must adhere to the "network neutrality" principle, network operators can not adjust the network configuration to treat network services, the need to treat all users of the network equally.

Micro-letter is Tencent in the mobile internet era the most successful products, if the operator on the micro-letter to the user fees, leading users to choose rice Chat and other similar applications, then Tencent's mobile strategy will be seriously hit. Since the micro-letter commercialization has just started, Tencent can not afford the micro-letter because of the loss of users pay, give small take big, to operators pay "buy road money" is also Tencent.

If the operator really to the Chinese micro-trust users charge, it can be said to be "special fees, to special you", but also reflects the characteristics of the Chinese market.

You feel it.