Opera launches App Pass zero-rating tool for carriers

Opera Max App Pass

Opera just released a new tool called App Pass, which gives carriers an easy way to provide people with free access to certain apps for limited periods of time.

The tool is a feature of the Opera Max mobile data management app and follows the release a few years back of Web Pass, which aims to help carriers provide pay-per-use generalized web access. At launch, it can be used to provide free access for set periods of time; it will soon also allow sponsored and “paid passes” to apps.

The Norwegian company’s first customer is Norwegian carrier Telenor, which will test out App Pass in some of its Asian operations. “We’re eager to see how this service is received in our markets,” Telenor Digital chief Rolv-Erik Spilling said in a statement.

The so-called zero rating of certain apps – a practice also known as positive price discrimination – is becoming widespread, particularly in emerging markets. While it violates net neutrality by steering users towards certain services that have struck deals with the carriers, it’s also a handy way for operators to show people what mobile broadband can do, with the hope of subsequently selling them up to generalized access.

Opera, best known as a browser company, has generally been more successful in the mobile market than on the desktop, and was a pioneer of the data compression techniques that users and carriers in emerging markets – where mobile is king — can employ to save money.

Giving carriers an easy way to deploy zero-rating is yet another way for Opera to ensure that its software maintains a key position on low-cost handsets in such markets. For the carriers, it’s an opportunity to hang onto the gatekeeper role that companies such as Facebook are trying to seize with their own emerging-market zero rating initiatives.

For users, it may provide the first tempting taste of the mobile internet, but zero rating could ultimately lead to a fragmented experience of what apps and the web can offer.

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