It is undisputed that businesses, whether small-scale or otherwise cannot survive without robust connectivity solutions. Often, connectivity services are not consumption-based; rather, an ISP provides a variety of plans that can then be purchased based on the requirements of a business.
However, IS Open Network (ISON) plans to bring this model to an end. The company’s new addition to offering connectivity services will be consumption-based. This means that institutions can now choose to be billed based on the amount of data consumed in a particular month.
The product has already gone live but was officially announced earlier today. It is available in a couple of ISON’s markets such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Ghana.
In principle, the product’s motivation is to help a business make considerable savings on the overheads experienced during downtimes and off-peak seasons.
It has been argued that most companies want to consume connectivity services as a utility, like water and electricity where charges are based on the amount of service used in a predefined period.
“With this new service, our clients will be given an open pipe and can utilize as much bandwidth as they like and only pay for what they have used at the end of the month. It also allows them to set limits depending on how much they would like to consume without calling our support team,” said Internet Solutions Managing Director Richard Hechle.
“We have listened to our clients’ feedback and decided to change the economic structure of our IP business by implementing usage-based billing. Primarily, the objective or problem being addressed is not pricing but a technical issue to ensure a good client experience by having an open network and addressing bandwidth demands in a cost-effective way,” he added.
According to the firm, the unlimited or ‘all you can eat’ model is wasteful in terms of resource allocation and creates economic inefficiencies.
Plans
Clients can choose from four bandwidth plans: 20 Mbps, 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and STMI1 – 155 Mbps last mile but only on IS networks.
Lastly, the new product is optional for now but IS sees a future where it will drop open access and go for fully metered.
