Mobile data pricing is an unenviable job.

Back to my blog after a long time..

Mobile Data consumption has reached a point where operators cannot be profitable at the prices which customers are willing to pay: The average usage on Smartphones is 400-500 MB and for tablets and dongles at 1 GB. In markets like India where overall ARPU is at $2/month it will be foolhardy to expect mass adoption with per GB prices at $7-$8 (3G double offer rates for most operators).
As per an industry report the network opex on delivering data is at $2-$4/GB. Add to that the cost of the exorbitant license fees and it becomes impossible to be affordable on a cost plus basis.
On the other hand Pricing at an affordable level invites results in huge traffic growth that core network expansion becomes necessary every few months.

I am yet to meet some one with a solution. Moving or off-loading traffic to networks with lower cost/GB like LTE or WiFi might be a long term solution but requires significant investment and eco-system development.

Given the nature of the problem significant investment is required in compression techniques on Video and File sharing traffic. You can't have every subscriber downloading 10 MB videos for virtually no cost. That is a recipe for bankcruptcy...