Smart Phones are here to stay and they will get smarter yet. Other data hungry devices will follow on. The mobile data revolution has arrived (at last). Of course it needed a new tariff structure from mobile operators alongside the new devices to really kick-start the revolution but no one can doubt that we have now entered the mobile data age. The all-you-can-eat data tariff plans proved to be essential if mobile operators were to entice customers to use data services and there can be no going back. Flat rate is king. As well as eliminating bill shock for data users they also broke the traditional model that Telco’s have lived with since the invention of the telephone. Conventional wisdom for 100 years has been that more traffic = more revenue and as long as you planned your business correctly (which wasn’t hard to do) you were profitable.

However, with flat data revenues, increased traffic means increased cost, not increased revenue. The world has turned upside down. This doesn’t have to be the end of the world for operators, as long as they apply intelligent thinking.

There is one problem though that they all need to overcome before they face the new world. Visibility of the impact of the huge data volumes and peaks on their network and the implications of the proliferation of apps over which they have no control is essential. If mobile operators are to turn their customer’s appetite for data hungry devices and apps to their advantage, they need to start understanding what is happening under their very noses. So, the race is on to discover tools, systems, surveillance techniques, accurate forecasting capabilities and processes and (future) investment and cost analysis. In the voice world this had been done from within the comfort zone of more traffic is a good thing. In today’s world, more data traffic may be a good thing, but it might also just be the killer app that operators were not looking for! Data traffic does have wealth potential – but it also comes with a health warning in big font and capital letters for those who sleepwalk their way through the new Smartphone revolution. We have the smart phone. Now we need the Smart Operator.