Billing is one of the more important variables that will impact
the success of a Wireless Internet. It will be increasingly
important to have multiple billing models to suit a wide range
of users. Users will vary demographically, geographically, by
access type, and by media and content type as well as by the
need to have billing information filtered or summarized. Billing
not only provides access and content providers with a source of
revenue but it will increasingly provide detail that helps to
determine which type of content is offered and promoted.
The early days of Internet revealed its inherent difficulty for
billing. The Internet was (and still is, to some degree) synonymous
with “free.” Users only pay for access; most content is free. It is difficult
to assess value of content because users of content do not
always agree about what is valuable and what is not. We can
assume that those who visit a particular site receive value from it,
but it is still hard to quantify that value in terms of dollar amounts.
The concept of value is—anything is worth what the market
will bear. The early Internet was more like an open warehouse
than a store—you found what you wanted and took as much of
it as you liked. Because the content was in digital format, you
could take as much as you wanted and still leave the same
amount for another guy. The supply was virtually endless: A digital
content “inventory” doesn’t get depleted except in terms of
availability via an access channel. If too many people try to take
out—or download—content at once, you have the equivalent of
waiting in a checkout lane. Bandwidth limitations place the only
restriction on what can be downloaded from the free Internet.
Because there was no system in place to request money in
exchange for content, it was difficult to determine if the content
was worth one cent or one million dollars. After all, it’s amazing
what people will take when it’s for free! Originally, this didn’t
bother the content-creation guys; they all thought that they
would make money later, after everyone was hooked on the idea
of getting content from their particular “shop.” Branding was the
byword, and the great World Wide Web was an open shopping
mall of opportunities. Unfortunately, this didn’t work too well.
Giving content away cost an amazing amount of real money. 183