Charging bands (or plan bands) are the other most prominent aspect of plan definition. Since the use of bands is slightly more complex than the use of fees, some further examples are provided in this section to indicate how they are used within Jet.
Bands, or ‘charge-bands’ are used by Jet to define how to charge the user for ongoing usage of the a plan. You may attach as many charge bands as you like to a plan, and thereby alter the charging rate depending on the end-user’s usage. For example, in the basic product bundle example used above, the 50 hour access plan may have the following charge bands:
- $0 per hour for the first 50 hours.
- $1 per hour from the 50th – 100th hours of usage.
- $1.25 per hour after the 100th
You may also define charge rules based on traffic (Mb) usage rather than time, or mix the two in different charge bands to apply to a given plan (i.e. charge by both time and traffic usage). An example of one way you could do this is shown in Table 1.
| Plan Band # | Maximum Usage | Units | Cost per unit |
| 1 | 0 | Mb | $0.50 |
| 2 | 150 | Mb | $0.10 |
| 3 | 500 | Mb | $0.20 |
| 4 | 0 | Hr | $5.00 |
Table 1: One possible configuration of four charging-bands. See the accompanying text for an explanation of their interaction in charge allocation.
Jet allows you to mix bands which charge by time with others that charge by traffic usage. An example of such a ‘mixed’ band structure is shown in Table 1.
If a plan has multiple plan bands that define charges using the same units (say, several bands all based on charges by traffic usage), then the charges are calculated according to the order of their maximum usage values (except where that value is ‘0’). If a plan-band’s Maximum Usage is set to ‘0’, then it applies to all traffic above the other bands. In effect, setting the Maximum Usage to ‘0’ makes that band an ‘unlimited’ band.
In this configuration, the Band 2 costing would apply to the first 150 Mb, and the Band 3 costing to the traffic between 150 and 500 Mb. The Band 1 costing would apply to to traffic above 500 Mb. In addition, the Band 4 costing would apply to all usage, but would rate usage according to time spent connected to the service rather than to volume used.
To view or edit a band, you need to navigate to the ‘Plan Band Details’ page for this band.
To get there, first use the ‘Products’ link in the upper navigation bar to get to the main bundles list, then click the name of the bundle that contains the plan to which the band is attached, and then click on the name of the band you are after in the list of ‘Bands attached to this Plan’.
To view or edit an existing band, click on its name in the list of bands at the bottom of the ‘Edit -Update Plan’ page (Figure 43).
To create a new band, click on the ‘Add New Band’ button on the ‘Edit -Update Plan’ page. (Figure 43). This will bring you to the ‘Plan Band Details’ page (Figure 46).
Figure 46: The Plan Band Details page
Jet Billing 