Why Operators Should Offer PC-Phone Mobile Broadband Tethering Now

The recession is causing consumer product strategy professionals responsible for mobile broadband to re-evaluate their mobile broadband portfolio strategy. Due to its immaturity, the mobile broadband market is at greater risk from the downturn than is home broadband. Offers with low upfront costs are now vital to maximize customer acquisition. Operators should fill entry-level gaps in their mobile broadband portfolio by marketing the use of consumer phone handsets as a broadband modem — so-called tethering. Device makers must assess their road map to prioritize low-cost tactical products over expensive or complicated products such as integrated laptop 3G modems. In addition, product strategy professionals must combine their tariff and device strategies. Their goal should be to ensure that they always extract clear incremental revenues from PC use by designing handset data tariffs and PC-focused data plans together.