Sponsored Data

The next big thing in wireless is what will be called "sponsored data." With "sponsored data," a company will cover the data transmission cost to your phone or tablet. For example, a movie production company will cover the data transmission cost to stream movie trailers to your devices. Obviously, almost every consumer company will consider this approach. In essence, it's like "a reverse 1-800 service" where companies cover the cost of consumers contacting it instead of the consumers paying for the calls, under "sponsored data," companies cover the costs of "calling customers" instead of customers paying for those calls.  AT&T will be the first company to announce this approach, but Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint are sure to follow. This is a big deal that could have major implications for how data is "managed" (i.e., billed, allocated, etc.) by the wireless carriers.