60% Reduction In 3G Tariffs Has Lead To 78% Increase In User Base

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60% Reduction In 3G Tariffs Has Led To 78% Increase In User Base

Few months back all the major mobile operators in India slashed their 3G tariffs by up to 60% , some have even increased the price of their 2G packs , this has led to a massive increase in the 3G user base .

According to the MBit Index report, by Nokia Siemens Networks for operators in India, total user base of 3G services have increased by 78 per cent while that of 2G services has increased by 47 per cent during the last seven months.

The report further said, "While 2G users across the country are consuming three-quarters of the total mobile data traffic on average, 3G users consume four times more data than 2G users."

According to the report , a first time 3G user consumes close to 400MB of data /month compared to 100MB / month by 2G users .

Source
 
Clear indication that with lower prices the volume in terms of customer base increases tremendously, but why is this so hard to understand for our Telecom service providers....
 
I don't understand why these telecom operators do not understand that if they reduce the prices, automatically people will be paying for 3G. Same goes with broadband. Today many of us are seeking download rigs, because we have puny connections that take forever to download a single 700 MB Movie. If they instead give a high speed connection like 15 Mbps then people will not abuse it (hopefully) and won't keep downloading stuff. We too have limited HDD space.
I have at least found myself doing that. Although i was never into 24x7 downloading, but here when i want to watch movies or Indian TV shows, i just stream them or download them as needed and not have a 20-30GB queue that will take weeks to download.

Btw which mobile provider (in Mumbai and also working in Maharashtra circle or vice versa) provides decent 3G service at reasonable prices ?
 
@raksrules, sadly it is still MTNL 3g which does allow respectable volume of downloads.i too cannot understand the logic of not allowing better speeds on broadband. some time ago airtel was posting losses in it s quarter, then why not start be competitive to the user demands?only when users see true VFM options will people go for better plans.
 
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our govt is to blame. they want to make money and high taxes on everything and they sell licenses at exorbitant prices too. to top it, in the news a few days back i heard, they will resell already sold mobile licenses on the basis of frequency and invalidate the existing companies licenses.
 
our govt is to blame. they want to make money and high taxes on everything and they sell licenses at exorbitant prices too. to top it, in the news a few days back i heard, they will resell already sold mobile licenses on the basis of frequency and invalidate the existing companies licenses.
Uhh thats the problem of just skimming through news. :p

If you would be aware, the government is to blame, but exactly opposite reason. They sold the 2G licenses at dirt cheap prices (2G scam), the supreme court ruling has invalidated all the licenses sold in that auction, and the process of re-auction for that band is underway. Its an auction no one is forcing the telecom companies to quote exhoribant rates, the telecom companies feel that even after paying the license rates, they can make money hence they buy the bandwidth. The reason why 3G prices were higher was that the telecom companies are yet finding very few adopters for 3G broadband. Almost everyone I know who has a smart phone are yet using 2G connection. I feel the current rate of Rs 250 for 1 Gb is a fair price, as atleast in Mumbai Vodafone's 3G connectivity is pretty good (am able to stream HD youtube videos almost at all the places).
 
I was using Docomo's Rs. 99 2G pack till 2 months ago and switched to 3G when the prices dropped because i rarely used 200-300 Mb of data and they were giving 300Mb 3G data for the same price. However luckily i am in the habit of recharging my phone online from Docomos website and now am getting 1GB 3G data pack for just Rs.31. It is supposed to be a promotional offer but have been using it for the past 2 months.
P.S. - i actually have to spend the same Rs 250 that people spend for 1GB 3G pack on other operators but i also get Rs. 219 worth of talktime, which equates to just Rs. 31 for 1 GB 3G services.
 
I was using Docomo's Rs. 99 2G pack till 2 months ago and switched to 3G when the prices dropped because i rarely used 200-300 Mb of data and they were giving 300Mb 3G data for the same price. However luckily i am in the habit of recharging my phone online from Docomos website and now am getting 1GB 3G data pack for just Rs.31. It is supposed to be a promotional offer but have been using it for the past 2 months.
P.S. - i actually have to spend the same Rs 250 that people spend for 1GB 3G pack on other operators but i also get Rs. 219 worth of talktime, which equates to just Rs. 31 for 1 GB 3G services.

Yeah I know. That is seriously a good deal.
 
BSNL 3G 6 months UL for 4200 INR during 2010 end! Those were the days. With that Huawei E173 dongle, my netbook braced 5mbps download speeds for a while. :unsure:
 
Uhh thats the problem of just skimming through news. :p

If you would be aware, the government is to blame, but exactly opposite reason. They sold the 2G licenses at dirt cheap prices (2G scam), the supreme court ruling has invalidated all the licenses sold in that auction, and the process of re-auction for that band is underway. Its an auction no one is forcing the telecom companies to quote exhoribant rates, the telecom companies feel that even after paying the license rates, they can make money hence they buy the bandwidth. The reason why 3G prices were higher was that the telecom companies are yet finding very few adopters for 3G broadband. Almost everyone I know who has a smart phone are yet using 2G connection. I feel the current rate of Rs 250 for 1 Gb is a fair price, as atleast in Mumbai Vodafone's 3G connectivity is pretty good (am able to stream HD youtube videos almost at all the places).

Maybe. I only skimmed thru this article in economic times.
Spectrum allocation: Government to go ahead with refarming plan - Economic Times
The government will take away airwaves from existing GSM operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular in early 2013 and complete their resale by the middle of next year as it implements the controversial proposal to refarm spectrum held by incumbents.

Existing operators have vehemently opposed the proposal to refarm airwaves, which involves redistribution of the highly efficient airwaves in 900 MHz band and substituting it with frequencies in the 1,800 MHz . But a telecom department official said the government was finalising the timetable for refarming, making it clear that the government intends to go ahead with this policy despite opposition from existing operators.

Bharti, Vodafone and Idea have warned that reallocation of more efficient 900 MHz (megahertz) spectrum through auctions would make investments of over Rs 150,000 crore redundant, lead to protracted disputes, disrupt services for hundreds of millions of mobile customers and translate to higher tariffs for customers as operators would have to incur huge costs for setting up additional towers for the 1,800 MHz network.

The DoT official quoted above said both the panel of ministers on spectrum as well as the Union Cabinet had already approved the refarming policy and the telecom department was bound to implement this policy.

"The Union Cabinet approved the National Telecom Policy in May, and this clearly spells out that spectrum will be refarmned. This is the official policy of the government," said the official. Trai has had recommended that minimum price for 900 MHz band auctions should be two times the reserve price for the upcoming 1,800 MHz auctions. The regulator had set the minimum price of 1,800 MHz band at 18,100 crore (for 5 MHz), but the Cabinet lowered this to Rs 14,000. At this price range, incumbent operators will have to shell out a minimum of Rs 75,000 to Rs 95,000 crore to retain their 900 MHz spectrum.
 
raksrules, sadly it is still MTNL 3g which does allow respectable volume of downloads.i too cannot understand the logic of not allowing better speeds on broadband. some time ago airtel was posting losses in it s quarter, then why not start be competitive to the user demands?only when users see true VFM options will people go for better plans.

airtel is still posting losses quarter after quarter.

its not government alone.operators are also equal or more than guilty and greedy.
 
our govt is to blame. they want to make money and high taxes on everything and they sell licenses at exorbitant prices too. to top it, in the news a few days back i heard, they will resell already sold mobile licenses on the basis of frequency and invalidate the existing companies licenses.

that license will be technology neutral meaning operator can use it in any way it wishes.

it can use it for voice or LTE no issues with that and It is to be re auctioned after supreme court ruling nullifying all of A.Raja magic.

here operators are winning as license they are getting will be tech neutral.
 
Hope the operators have learned their mistakes and apply this lesson in 4G pricing.

as of now only docomo seems to hhave found logical way of doing it with their 250 rs pack.
rest all are still milking us .

and to do that tariff reduction ,
they nullified their high end plans.

I use airtel 750 rs plan which gives me 5 gb data effective price per GB is 150.
they removed this along with 1000 rs plan which used to give 10 gb.

so operators corporate greed is also to blame.

I blame operators only for this low penetration of 3G.

aircel also has decent plans .
 
The talktime charges offered in India, are ridiculously low compared to international prices. To offset the very low ARPU (Average revenue per user), the telecom companies were charging higher data prices. However this led to very low usage, and I think they have found a right balance for price and connectivity for data charges, 1 gb is about enough to surf, watch occasional HD videos, and stream music (my usage is round about 700mb per month). Of-course any software update is done through wi-fi at home.

Telecom companies are not making as much money as initially thought of, the billion + population base however offsets one of the lowest ARPU worldwide. In my work related background research for a telecom tower company, I learnt that coverage for 3G is much lower then 2G, hence for the same area you require more towers to get 3G connectivity. This does increase capital expenditure for telecom companies, and is one of the reasons why 3G connectivity might not flow over to rural areas at all.

Hope the operators have learned their mistakes and apply this lesson in 4G pricing.

I sincerely hope Indian operators would skip this technology altogether and concentrate on improving 3G connectivity. At its optimum, 3G connectivity gives 10-12 mbps speeds, much more then what is required for 1080P streaming. On the other hand LTE technology uses ridiculously high energy for faster speeds. Most of the phones drain off in just 5-6 hrs if LTE tech is on, which makes it pointless for the additional CAPEX required.
 
^ You can't really compare prices to international level. Apart from the network equipment, everything comes cheap. Although I do believe their plans are not optimized for a price sensitive market like India. What brings the most part of money in developed countries like USA or UK are the combo plans. What they probably can do is provide a cheaper talk-time plan for students and some minutes+data+text plans for their main profit.

I agree with your point on 4G. For a country like India, they should really concentrate on 3G coverage and reliability. There are a lot of smart phone users these days and they can generate serious revenues. Although I remember reading somewhere that in 4G, its not about only higher speed. Voice over data are supposed to enable providers to actually reduce their cost overall while providing HD voice and higher data speed.
 
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