In my last article titled “Bangladesh: Data Service Dissection” I tried to give a generalized view of data service offerings by several Bangladeshi operators. Here in this article I will try to depict a comparison scenario of the data service offerings as well as the tariff models among some Asian operators. The operators are chosen from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Singapore to provide a clear comparative picture of Asia. Although the basic content of this article will focus on the tariff side of the operators’ offerings but there will have a small focus on the technology and content staffs. As the operators followings are chosen:
- AKTEL (Bangladesh)
- GrameenPhone (Bangladesh)
- CityCell (Bangladesh)
- Spice Telecom (India)
- ExcelMindo (Indonesia)
- M1 (Singapore)
- Celcom (Malaysia)
Analysis: Data Service Network Technology
Analyzing the data service network architecture, it is seen that the following network architectures are used by the operators:
- CDMA 2000 1X (CityCell)
- 2.5G (AKTEL, M1, Spice, ExcelMindo, Celcom)
- 3G (M1, ExcelMindo, Celcom)
- 3.5G/HSDPA (M1, ExcelMindo) and
- Edge (GrameenPhone)
Subscribers from M1 and ExcelMindo are found to get more and more technology advanced.
Analysis: Pay-per-use
Almost all the operators are enforcing the pay-per-use model in case of browsing. The tariff are found almost nearby for all of the operators. CityCell and Grameenphone are offering at US$ 0.000286/KB (Kilobyte), whereas AKTEL’s rate is $US 0.00022/KB. M1 is charging in 10kb (Kilobit) block where the browsing charge is US$ 0.069/kb which is pretty costly comparing to the Asian market. In case of Spice Telecom the scenario is a bit different as per it is described in their website. For the general mobile browsing they are not charging anything. But the subscriber is allowed to visit only the Spice portal. But in case subscriber wants to access other sites there is a monthly package for US$ 2.423. Excelmindo from Indonesia is applying tariff based on the WAP services the subscriber is using. They are providing two different types of portals: XL WAP Portal and Hot WAP Portals for which they are charging US$ 0.0/kb and US$ 0.000545/kb respectively. And for any other WAP portals or sites Excelmindo is charging 0.00109/kb. Browsing fee for Celcom is US$ 0.0029/kb where the charge is done as 10kb block. One interesting point is: Celcom is charging a one time fee (US$ 1.44) for the activation of the GPRS service for their prepaid subscribers which is totally free in Bangladeshi operators. Here in Bangladesh in AKTEL all the subscribers are provisioned with GPRS service by default.
Analysis: Data Plan
In Bangladesh only CityCell has introduced the concept of data plan based tariff. M1 is providing both 3G and HSDPA services to its subscribers. In the 3G sector M1 has three different plans: SunSurf 22, Sunsurf 10 and Sunsurf 5. SunSurf 22 costs US$ 15.21/month for 1GB data transfer limit. After 1GB the extra cost involved is US$ 6.91/GB. SunSurf 10 costs US$ 6.91/month for maximum 5MB limit. Over 5 MB the subscribers have to pay US$ 0.00207/kb.And the last 3G plan SunSurf 5 costs US$ 5.25/month; data transfer limit is 2MB and after 2MB the extra cost will be US$ 0.0069/kb. For M1 HSDPA customers there are two plans. They are: SunSurf Plus 38 (which costs US$ 26.27/month) and SunSurf Plus 10 (costs US$ 6.91/month). For the Plus 38 plan the data limit is 1 GB (over 1GB extra to be paid is US$6.91/GB) and for the Plus 10 the monthly limit is 10MB (if 10MB exceeds in a month then extra payment will be US$0.00207/kb).
Excelmindo has data plans for both 2.5G and 3G subscribers. 2.5G data plans include Power Data 15, 30 and 100. Monthly limit for Power Data 15 is 15MB for US$ 10.90. Power 30 and 100 plans costs US$ 18.53 and $US 32.70 respectively with the maximum data limits of 30MB and 100MB. For each plan if the data transfer exceeds the maximum limit, each extra kb costs US$0.000545.
Excelmindo 3G has two plans: MEGA Data (limit: 250MB) and GIGA Data (limit: 3GB) which costs US$10.80 and US$54.40 per month respectively. The data cost above the limit is: US$0.0000436/kb for both the packages.
Celcom and SPICE Telecom is not providing any data limit based data plan for their subscribers.
Analysis: Service Level
Data services are sometimes seen as the lucrative and costly ones. So in some countries like Bangladesh it becomes very tough for the operators to invest in data service products where the percentage of data users is very less considering the entire subscriber base. So most of the South Asian countries are generally providing the basic data service (WAP Portal, Content Download etc..). GrameenPhone and AKTEL are offering download services only.
Excelmindo, along with the basic download service is providing the streaming service. In the streaming service they are providing the LIVE streaming (SCTV Bundling) for US$ 2.18/month. Also they are streaming the International TV (like BBC, TraceTV, Aljajeera, SCT Live etc) for US$3.27/month. Also the Excelmindo subscribers are enjoying VOD (Video-on-demand) services.
M1 is providing a bag full of services and among all these operators M1 has the most educated set of subscribers. Educated in a sense that most of the subscribers are well introduced with the data service. M1 is providing M1 Webcam (a subscription based service), a service to monitor your webcam remotely. Subscriber can send SMS and get the instant picture taken by his/her webcam over MMS. Now the concept of this service clearly specifies the level of M1 subscribers. The monthly subscription for this service is: US$ 2.034. There is another rich and high level service provided by M1 is : M1 podcast. The subscribers can enjoy a wide range of podcasts for a monthly subscription fee of US$ 3.40. Also there is a one time registration fee of US$ 6.804 for the podcasting service.
To say about Celcom, it is also providing several types of 3G services. Among the services Mobile TV, Music Services, Sports Contents and several types of games are there.
Conclusion:
In Asia there found two basic differences. South Asian countries are developing ones and rest of the Asia can be said of as developed in data service in Asian region. With the entrance of high-end handsets the trends and practices of the subscribers are changing day by day alarming the South Asian operators to concentrate on the data service. So it is the time to take the lead to make the data product brand, grab the market, educate the user and sell the service.
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