Billing used to put the bling into telecoms, now it's only responsible for the occasional shock

Billing is about to become highly strategic and much more about brand management than imaginable for carriers.

At the Corporate Innovation Project in New York we are looking at new pricing models like Amazon''s Kindle and the German game platform Bigpoint.

Both allow carriers to monetize their backhauls in ways that break out of the subscription/access model, allowing large -- and profitable -- revenue increases from the customer base without growing the base. For companies like Comcast, BT, Verizon and Deutsche Telekom, how to grow in saturated markets is an existential question. And they know it.

Large new sources of backhaul revenue will have to billed in imaginative ways that enhance the brand experience of the customer.

The impact will of success be huge. Carriers today try to restrict the use backhaul either by limiting available bandwidth or charging extortionately for it, or both. Indeed, products like Panasonic''s new HDC-TM10 palm-sized high def camera are unusable, and for most carriers, an unwanted node on their networks.

Until carriers can successfully monetize their backhauls, they will have no incentive to build high bandwidth, symmetric networks capable of handling modern consumer electronics. And no way of managing the sales process for their own services or their customers'' experience of carrier brands.

In addition, the conflict between carriers and the Sonys and Panasonics of this world, already looming a decade ago when the tech crash derailed everyone, delaying the crisis, is now unfolding in full force.

Only a monetized backhaul with the artful billing to support it will allow carriers to realize rates of return high enough to justify the capex needed to build networks robust enough to handle the CE of 2019 and beyond.

At CIP, we believe that Amazon and Bigpoint are the leading edge of new pricing and billing models and we are creating innovative alliances among our CIP Participants to exploit this.

Billing is back!

You raise some valid and interesting points but I can tell you that most fixed and mobile operators are more concerned at how they can share form what is being sold and delivered over their networks rather than simply becoming the medium of delivery. Mention ''big fat pipe'' to any communications service provider and they go pale. One of the most effective weapons in their arsenal is their ability to bill almost anything, no matter how small or how complex yet they continue to ignore its potential as a potential profit centre.

The success of Apple''s AppStore model has shaken them but in the world''s biggest markets, most of them emerging, pre-paid is still king and they still hold the key. It depends whether they can get it to fit the lock. Charging content providers 50% to 70% of each sale is NOT the way. Billing will never go away, but I''m not so sure it''s back quite yet, at least not for the operators. TP