The need for new mobile plans

It's time for the telco industry to face up to a simple reality: people simply want to pay for what they use.

The current era of mobile plans, where you are locked into a certain quotas for over 12 months, is inane in today's fast-changing world. That being said, the pre-paid model, which forces users to worry about whether or not they have enough credit before using their phone, isn't much better.

According to a new report from Strategy Analytics, consumers want a plan that allows for deep customisation of what they pay for. A survey from the firm found that 50 per cent of smartphone owners in the US, UK, and China say they would like to be able to customise their plans on the amount of data and calls. Further to this, another 60 per cent said they would want to be able to monitor their data use in real-time.

While such strategies are leaking their way into the virtual telco space, it's unlikely that the dominate telcos will adopt them anytime soon. Given how we are all somewhat addicted to using our smartphones and mobile internet, it's in their best interests to stick with their current regime.

Perhaps if one of the major telco's offers such a plan, the others will follow. But until then all this talk of new plans is nothing but a pipe dream. 

So while we all dare to dream of new telco plans in Australia, here's an infographic by Alcatel-Lucent which offers some insight into how we use our smartphone.