Cost - For years the cost of mobile connections has limited my willingness to fully utilise my phone as the main device. I have been scared that the bill is going to be huge, and in the past it has been - (up to £600 for a 2 week trip). Apocryphal stories about accidental data downloads pushing bills into the £000’s have made me wary. This time I have got a package that will limit the cost to £100 for global roaming including data. This has ‘freed’ me to use the applications I would use at home without fear of ‘bill shock’ – an industry term that is translated as ‘ripped off’ by users. Watching CNN (as you do when in strange countries and hotel rooms) there was an interview with a CEO of network who was saying that the pricing model of data use was broken and that a fairer deal was needed for both users and networks. Yet this same model has allowed all manner of new services and content to be created, and it is the content that has driven users to their networks – are they killing the goose that laid their golden egg, are they really so hard up, or are they ‘maximising revenue’ ?
Aside from mobile, I have been accessing wifi and fixed networks in hotel rooms and lobbies. In some places this has cost £15 per day per device (up to 3 devices in my case), in others it has been free. The ones that have cost have been reliable, while the free have almost universally been patchy to unworkable – surely there is a business model somewhere in between ?
While cost may not be a core element of my experience, it does frame my expectations, a key determinant of my eventual experience. Freemium as a business model is compelling to me as a user, but when freemium means that I cannot connect, that is not a business model, it is a business failure.
Connections – I have lost count the number of times I have had to enter passwords on my or security codes to access networks. Multiple times for multiples devices. My current password in an airport lounge is 837885972 (catchy, I know)… while this may not be such a problem on a laptop or phone, it gets quite tricky on a joystick based interface on my PSP.
What has really let me down has been the quality of service and the speed of the networks. My activity, and resultant experience depends on how reliable the connection is.
Platforms – One of my key platforms for keeping touch with my family is Skype – it allows me to see as well as speak to my children (well in theory anyway) but it has been consistently poor – cut outs, poor audio quality and poor video quality. I have wanted a premium service that would guarantee a quality of service, but none seems to be available (please tell me if there is one available). I might try facetime to see if that is any better (can only hope it will be !)
Finally, I have just managed to sneakily download a BBC programme from the iPlayer through my company VPN, which made me wonder why my device or my online identity cant mark me out as a Brit so that I can access the content I pay for when overseas ?
I think the costs, connections and platforms discussed above indicate some interesting challenges and opportunities when seen through the lens of cloud based services / computing.
Firstly, the good stuff. I think it will be more likely that I will be able to download / stream BBC programmes as my storage and content access will be permament and secure (so iPlayer will know that I am a UK tax payer wherever I am in the world). To me that sounds exciting.
Yet my current ability to connect to networks, and the costs associated with that are a major barrier. The cloud will work when we have ubiquitous networks, and I don’t think we do just yet. We already can see the advent of SAAS being driven by the cloud, but I think it will go even further – where we will have devices as a service provider (DASP ??) The device being provided for free in return for a payment relating to content access (heard of that model before ?).
That still doesn’t solve the current issue of patchy networks, and I think there are some interesting opportunities for us, the users, to bridge the gaps, where we become the cloud. – Innovative services like Fon allow people to share their bandwidth in return for access to bandwidth elsewhere, and I would like to see how this model could be extended to provide greater mobility and better content access for all.
I can see some great opportunities for innovation in this area – new products, services and business models – maybe I am being naïve, maybe too optimistic ? You tell me, I would love to hear your thoughts.
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