In an on-going discussion at Webtorials, Gary Audin enumerated some of the features that are becoming available for IPDR (IP Detail Recording) for cable service providers.
In an ongoing discussion at Webtorials, Gary Audin enumerated some of the features that are becoming available for IPDR (IP Detail Recording) for cable service providers.
As noted by Audin, “The addition of the IP Detail Record for ISP billing will further complicate charges for WEB 3.0. The IPDR collection is performed by the cable modem. Here are the IPDR benefits to the cable provider that will probably mean higher bills in the future:
• Deploy usage based billing.
• Monitor the usage patterns to increase revenue.
• Bill for next generation IP based services with short development.
• Differentiate pricing and performance (SLA) of the service offerings such as IPTV, VoIP, streaming media, public WLAN access as well as regular Internet traffic.
• Identify AUP abusers.
“The cable provider can use the IPDR to offer many different pricing and billing options:
• Flat rate like in today’s pricing
• Flat rate based on bandwidth level
• Charges by data usage volume
• Charge by application
• Pay Per view billing
• Time-based billing
• Number of devices attached
• Number of users connecting
“The range of billing choices will make it harder to compare the cost that the customer will have to absorb. By creating different combinations of billing rules, the ISPs can create pricing confusion. Confusing pricing examples today are the many ways that enterprises have to deal with the pricing structures for MPLS services that make it difficult to compare MPLS providers.”
So this brings us to ask the question as to whether the enterprise will benefit from having these abilities. Steve has noted several times in this column that one of the most frustrating aspects of otherwise pretty good cellular data services is that there is a surcharge for overage – and no real-time usage tracking.
We would like to hear from you on this issue. Does IPDR give you the option of fine-tuning both the services that you purchase and internal charge-back billing? Or is it more data than you need? Join the discussion mentioned above, and we’ll report back to you.
