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??
2 comments:
Mafiz - you're right it is time for a new business model (and pricing options) for mobiles. I've been amazed that celcos have been able to get away with a pricing model that is based on POTS (ie the way our home landline phones were billed)for so long - not only this, but the unit prices for timed calls is typically much higher than STD and certainly for local calls. Users have accepted this I think because of the trade off with convenience - and one of the good things about the continuing competition is that customers may at long last have the chance to get a better pricing deal. And quietly ticking away there in the background is MoIP - (Mobiles on IP). At the moment VoIP providers like Skype are offering it; NGN can be expected to have a much greater impact.
Mafiz and Irene,
I definitely agree with both of you... I am personally tired to engaging into price wars in this business. I suggest we should write to MCMC from a consumer perspective - this is not benefiting us in the long run. tq. SAA
Post a Comment