Candy Bar Vs Box Of Chocolate Vs Lollipop Vs....

It's interesting to look at how Telcos put up their call plan propositions. Billboards, television or printing ads, we can see different approaches taken to lure customers.

Many Telcos likes to go for the 'simple' approach. Simple call plans that mostly appeal to the masses are easy to market, easy to manage internally and quite easy for the customers to understand. I would equate this approach to 'carpet bombing'. It doesn't really target any specific market segment.

One rate not only averages out the market, but cancels out the opportunity to upsell the service . There are customers who are willing to pay higher. There might also be customers who can't afford it like the lower income group. These are examples of unmatched demand and missed opportunity in the mass market approach.

Today, we have a Telco that charges on a per second basis. I'm sure there are takers for this charging method. You just pay what you use. How much savings can you get? Depends on your usage behaviour. If you talk less than a minute, I think this package suits you.

From a competition point of view, this is healthy. It's healthy because the market is flooded with options and customers are free to choose. Customers are happy and Telcos are announcing big profits every year. What's there to complain Mr Regulator, aka MCMC?

After all these years, do you realised that almost all the competition is about minutes, SMSs & speed? It seems that the players are still trying very hard to win the same war. It's the same game and someone has to got to change it. It's too saturated and the price war is eroding the value of communication services.

Competition is alive, but why are we still stuck in this minutes, sms & speed game? How long can we sustain this sweetening game? Candy bars, chocolates, lollipops, they might taste different, but they all can cause toothache. If this country is to move forward, proliferation of application services has to happen very quickly. So please open up a new battlefield and compete on value and services. Not just price.

Perhaps they're just meeting the expected demand. Or maybe technology is hindering the offering of new services. The circuit switch network capacity is a scarce resource and the service charging is based on a simple economic concept of demand and supply.

In packet switching however, the whole economic changes. IP network is based on the concept of capacity abundance. The concept of duration does not exist as the customer is considered as 'always on' just like broadband. So in the future, flat based charging would become more prominent.

This is what worries me. Today we are deeply engrossed with duration based charging. Just look at the price war.

What the industry should do is to shape and prepare the market for this NGN/IP type of services. I don't see that happening. What worries me even more is, with IP network, we'll still stuck with voice & SMS! You invest and build IP Network, but you don't sell next generation services? What's the point?

To really create value, we have to think beyond minutes and data, beyond spectrum and frequencies, beyond bandwidth and speed. We have to start thinking about the outcome we intend to create for customers. And the outcome differs from one customer to another. One size doesn't fit all. This is the most distinct and important transformational drive towards a full IP environment. It's not about technology evolution. Not about 3G, 4G, Wimax or LTE. But more importantly, it's about changing people's lifestyle, improving standards of living, enabling business and industrial growth. It's about moving up the country in the value chain.

Competition is alive. But if the players continuously engaged in the same ball game, the industry is not going to grow. Competition is good. But by just engaging in price wars, it stifles real economic value creation.

Dear Telcos, there are bigger things out there besides voice, sms & speed. Start offering differentiated customer services. Treat retail customers like how you treat corporate clients. Treat me as a unique customer. You connect us but the problem is you don't listen. You like to shout out the loudest. But all I need is a whisper.

If you care about me, don't give me 'tooth decay'. I won't subscribe to your service just because it's cheapest in the market. Enough of this cheap deals. I want service reliability, great customer service and a good loyalty plan. I'm willing to pay. Hello? Are you listening? Hello?? Can you hear me?? Are you there??

"Digi to halve carbon emissions"

This is very interesting. My staff Hafiz emailed this to me this morning (read). Very good initiative by Digi to reduce carbon emission. Being a communications service provider, telcos are actually well placed to provide long term and sustainable solutions for carbon emission reduction. Basically, more talk time means lesser travelling.

I think what's missing from Digi's effort is the integration of this initiative as part of their core business strategy, i.e revenue income. For now, they're just trying to create awareness on climate change. I'm not sure whether they realise this, but in a bigger context, they could potentially generate new and substantial revenue stream. This so called "Deep Green" programme aims to reduce CO2 by about 50,000 tonnes in four years time. 50k tonnage of Co2 savings can be traded in the carbon exchange!

And this is just the beginning. What they're talking about are carbon savings generated internally, coming from within Digi. Again, they're missing the bigger picture. This is so typical. It's a good example of how telcos are being self centric.

Wouldn't it sound nicer if Digi says that they want to be the enabler platform of carbon reduction? That they can help other industry to reduce their carbon emission as well? That they provide the solutions to carbon issues? I don't know. Perhaps its already part of their long term plan to do this. But really, creating awareness is just another CSR gimmick! It's time Digi's yellow men has a new friend. A green one!

I feel the telecommunication industry is really under valued. People still see it as a liability. And it doesn't help when telcos continuously engage in price wars. It only destroys the true value of communication services. But I feel Digi is doing the right thing for now. They're heading towards the right direction.

I hope other telcos can emulate this but do more by being customer centric. After all, it's not about postpaid vs prepaid, wireless vs wireline or Wimax vs GSM. Too much emphasis given to technology. It's about enabling K-Economy, enabling economic growth of the country and changing lifestyle of every citizen in this country. And that's invaluable!