MediaTel Mobile event: Net neutrality – Customers will pay

Mobile customers will pay for “what they see value in”, which means a shift towards increased tariffs for more bandwidth, according to Facebook’s head of mobile partnerships EMEA Fergal Walker.

Speaking about net neutrality at MediaTel Group’s Come on Mobile… Stand Up and Deliver! event on Friday, Walker said it is early stages but the market will see a “move towards customers paying more for eating more”.

Walker admitted that pricing models are still unclear and said it will take time and experimentation, but in five to 10 years people will pay for what they use.

Meanwhile, on the first panel, Karen Egan, head of the telecoms equity research team at RBS, said network speed has a huge impact on consumer decisions and therefore a two-tier pricing model for data was a necessary step for operators.

Egan expects businesses to lead the way – paying for higher speeds and greater bandwidth – but she also thinks there will be a sufficient number of individual consumers willing to pay a premium, especially alongside the rise of online video.

The question is, can one operator get a sufficient lead to offer a superior service?