LTEWS Vibe: Voice, data and video need separate pricing

Today end users purchase a wireless solution that has separate categories for voice and data usage. And depending on where you are in the world SMS and MMS packages. Avvasi believes the time has come for a separate video usage package and I think they have a good point to make.
If we go way way back to the dark ages when broadband first arrived in the market (it certainly seems like it was back in the dark ages), all of the operators wanted to sell a ‘faster’ service. But the average end user didn’t understand why they wanted to go faster and what the difference would be. As the market became educated, everyone wanted to go faster and immediately there was never enough bandwidth available.
Over time these offers, both wired and wireless, evolved to not only include speed by usage based on the amount of data transferred. As video usage has increased, data packages have also increased, but end users are still often surprised when their monthly billing arrives how quickly they have used up their allotted bandwidth due to video applications.
Is it time to change this business model to separate a monthly data usage based on non video-based traffic similar to today AND a monthly video usage based on the amount of time video is viewed as opposed to how much bandwidth the video consumed. This is something the average user understands. How much time they ‘watch’ vs. guessing how much data they used.
One example shared during my discussion with Avvasi was that of the Instagram video launch in the US. In the first 24 hours following the launch, this app became the #2 app utilizing bandwidth on the wireless network following YouTube. It’s amazing how fast the world can change with a new app.
I would agree it’s time for a pioneering operator to be the first mover and to offer a video time-based usage package. Of course this requires tools to measure this and some creative marketing plans, but could open a new world of revenue models for the operators.