Hello,

when I subscribed to this group, I've been kindly asked to share my view on the subject.
(Please note: it's my very personal view on the subject.)

In physics one would classify the current situation as "phase change" it's a rapid change from
one state into the other. We consume already many services, whose usage is free for us.

The important questions arising from that are:
1.) Who's actually paying?
2.) From a consumers perspective: what are we actually willing to pay?

I won't make an attempt to answer the first question, since revenue sharing models are used
a lot and in some cases silently. It's worrht a separate thread on business models - so let me
know, if we should cover this in the group.

Let me try to provide a view on the second question. I'm willing to pay for services, that
satisfy my demand for communication while privacy, security and freedom of choice are respected.

Privacy - all our usage data is analysed and used to drive sales-campaigns and customer interaction.
It's good to know, but do we really want our communication providers to know all this in real-time?
I'm sure, that communications providers to their very best to keep privacy - no doubt, otherwise the
market would go away from them. There's a more subtle point: I simply want to decide myself, if
I'm subject to a campaign or not (I won't cover the legal aspect - some info must be retained for a
bespoke period of time). Additionally: I'd much more like to say "communications provider: here are some of my tags, get back to me, if you can offer something for me..."

Security - I simply want my communication to be secure. No one else should be in the middle, nor should
theft of equipment lead to trouble.

Freedon of Choice - well that's driving the consumption of "free services" a lot. But does is actually
satisfy my demand for communication? If not (for whichever reason), then I might want to pay for that.

Coming back to the relation to IMS and NGN - we are very close to an unconstrained communication
platform, that we can use. Time has come to think of the value of communication for everyone. It used
to be a privilege having a phone, making long distance calls, having a mobile phone ... that's a long
list of achivements.

What remains unchanged: a demand for communication (telephony).
What should be considered for new services: think of interaction of services, think of services, knowing, that
I'm present, but my local time is 4am, while the serice thinks, I'm just awaiting a brilliant idea for a lunch.
Services should be more driven by the current situation I'm in and more importantly by the role I currently
have. (We used to discuss mobile subscriptions versus users or consumers a lot in data modelling - guess why?)

So what would I pay for: the new services, that allow me to filter incoming requests by services, taking my
current situation and role into account.

Please let me know: what's the kind of services, customers (individuals or communities) are willing to pay for?

Regards
Thomas