Ultimately it boils down to the question of how well can users predict their data usage.

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With enough volume, this could allow big telecoms users, such as multinational firms, to predict their telephone bills.

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Users on the site buy and sell players to predict sports outcomes or performance and compete for cash prizes.

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Although many observers predict that AOL would try to bring the ICQ users onto the IM platform, a company spokeswoman acknowledged that the two sets of users are very different and said the company does not plan to force one group to migrate from one system to the other.

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While we estimate global Internet users will reach 4.2 billion by the end of our forecast period, Trefis members predict the figure will reach closer to 5 billion.

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