Conclusion

This chapter discussed how incentive pricing schemes and new charging technology might improve revenue sharing among ISPs. We presented current ISP business relationship models, market structure, and existing pricing schemes to identify inefficiencies in revenue sharing and cost compensation. We argued that the introduction of dynamic pricing and new charging technology might increase revenue for ISPs and improve revenue-sharing and cost-compensation mechanisms. Through the introduction of incentive pricing schemes, ISPs may lower the churn rate and differentiate their services by introducing service quality, and thus satisfy their customer needs. End users may benefit from the broader selection of customized services, addressing their requirements for service quality.

However, dynamic pricing approaches seem quite ahead of the current ISP market trends. Further research is needed to provide insight on the commercial exploitation as well as the challenges to be faced by ISPs. Dynamic pricing assumes new charging technology is in place. The deployment of new charging technology will incur costs to the ISPs. In addition to this, end users may be reluctant to accept dynamic pricing. These factors need to be evaluated and analyzed thoroughly before ISPs should introduce dynamic pricing. Finally, the growth of demand on service quality should also be estimated and analyzed, as it seems to be the key driving force towards deployment of dynamic pricing.