New business model needed to keep 5G customers engaged, CTS told

TORONTO – Simply reducing prices is not enough to attract customers anymore. A new generation of consumers is willing to pay a premium for expedited service, the Canadian Telecom Summit was told Monday. Jasmeet Sethi is head of ConsumerLab for Ericsson AB. He told the crowd download speeds are no longer the gold standard when it comes to internet service. Uploading material is now at the forefront. “It does require some brand new thinking on the business model side of things,” he said. Moving from non-standalone to standalone 5G has created challenges for telecom service providers, he stated. People have different expectations from their carriers. Internet users can be divided into two camps, early adopters and mainstream clients. “The early adopters are telling us it’s no longer about speeds,” Sethi reported. “The needle has shifted from speeds to now a more app quality of experience.” As businesses adopt more online applications, demand for quality networks increases. For example, people attending concerts or sporting events need connectivity to present their tickets to gain entry, but if that connectivity is not there, they have long waits to get into the event. In an interview with The Wire Report following his speech, Sethi noted that a concert in Melbourne, Australia recently asked concertgoers to download their tickets ahead of time, as there would not be sufficient bandwidth available on site. There is increased congestion on 5G grids. This is in part due to unchanging attitudes toward the use of the technology. “It’s about heightened expectations and it all started with the way we started off with 5G in 2020 and 2021,” he said in the interview. “We pegged it as a technology that could essentially enable a lot of different use cases and so forth.” But with increased demand, a subsection of users are willing to pay a premium to get the extra connectivity they need to scan tickets, upload videos or similar applications. During his CTS talk, Sethi noted that uploads at Taylor Swift concerts led to data dumps not seen at major sporting events. Consumers are acknowledging that they need more power. “Yes, you’re thinking about maintaining the good health of this industry but that cannot be built on just reducing prices and just offering the same for more,” he told the crowd. “It needs to be more for more.” This line of thinking is not unique to telecom. In fact, brands like Berg Water, Starbucks, Patagonia, and Dyson Vacuums have long convinced their customers that they should pay extra for premium products. “We believe there needs to be a balance between affordability and driving pricing power for the consumers,” he told The Wire Report. Ericsson research has convinced him that consumers will pay extra for the luxury of better service, he told the CTS. Service providers should not reduce the price, they should elevate the value, he asserted. Today and in the future, clients will need maximum connectivity at stadiums, airports and hospitals. Those without it become ready to switch to another carrier if they are unhappy with their provider. “This is where the network is put to the test,” Sethi said. “This is where the network really matters.” Premium pricing should be the business model for advanced 5G and 6G technologies, he stated. – Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

New business model needed to keep 5G customers engaged, CTS told

News | June 17, 2024

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New business model needed to keep 5G customers engaged, CTS told

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