According to Google estimates in March this year, more than 40 million users in India access the Internet through their mobile phones. The company is also predicting that this number will increase to 300 million people accessing the mobile Internet by 2015. Further, Cisco has forecasted that mobile data traffic in India will increase by more than 100 times by 2015, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 158 percent.

In India and beyond, new smartphones, tablets and machine-to-machine devices are allowing people to engage with social networks, conduct business and manage their day-to-day activities on the move. This new and interactive mobile experience is bringing about a revolution in mobile broadband service models as providers experiment with innovative ways to monetize their offerings, attract and retain customers, and efficiently manage network resources.

Four trends are driving new service models: personalization, simplicity, open ecosystems, and casual usage. The success of these models depends on a deep understanding of subscribers, service focused on customers rather than devices and the ability to personalize and add value to over-the-top (OTT) applications. Gaining this level of insight requires service providers to make a fundamental shift from being “network providers” to “service and content enablers.”

Personalized Tiered Services

Tiered services enable providers to deliver plans that link customers’ usage and preferences with what they pay. Tiers also provide more transparency into service usage and cost, creating opportunities to increase revenues as usage increases. By combining network and subscriber intelligence with sophisticated policy management tools, operators can meet the requirements of different customer and market segments with a variety of personalized service tiers that include: