Vodaphone D2C Billing for Off Portal Content

From New Media Age: Vodaphone annouces program that allows content producers to pay for data transfer fees instead of end users.

"The model lets media owners and brands cover the data traffic costs to consumers of downloading content. The move could help drive the take-up of mobile content, such as music and video, by removing consumer fears over the final price they will be charged and letting content providers advertise one price for content.

Vodafone is the first operator to launch a commercial offering for third parties to let them absorb the cost of data traffic, making browsing and download of content free for consumers, who will only pay the retail price for actual content."

"Rich media, such as audio and video, will be the next fillip for the mobile content market," said Vodafone head of commercial partnerships Jeremy Flynn. "But a lot of current data tariffs are not 3G-centric. We're introducing an 0800 data model that'll be free to consumers and reverse-charged to content providers."