Friday April 2, 2010
FRIDAY REFLECTIONS
By B.K. SIDHU
WHO wants to be a millionaire ... oops, I mean a phoneaire?
Taking the theme of Slumdog Millionaire, DiGi.Com Bhd had its own show when it introduced the iPhone to the media on Wednesday.
Set at Good Evening Bangkok restaurant in One Utama, the phoneaire show had Praveen Rajan of DiGi’s product marketing as the chai wallah (tea boy) and marketing head Albern Murty, the host of the show. The questions were pretty simple and the impersonation of Anil and Jamal by Albern and Praveen hilarious.
Though the little show lacked the usual fanfare of launches that most companies indulge in, it marked the beginning of DiGi’s journey with iPhone. The iPhone is supposed to help DiGi grow revenues beyond the industry’s average 5% growth this year.
In a week, the phone company had 10,000 pre-orders of the iPhones and since its launch the numbers are growing by the day. Obviously the pent-up demand is huge and this also shows that a cheaper entry for iPhone is what people are looking for.
Now they have a choice. Maxis Communications Bhd had a year of exclusivity selling the iPhone till March 31.
This lifestyle device happens to be one of the many smartphones available in the market but only DiGi and Maxis sell the iPhone. Celcom Axiata Bhd has yet to find a common ground with Apple Inc on selling the iPhone.
Competition is here and is much needed. Just days before DiGi’s launch, Maxis dropped its prices by RM200 so that its pricing is not too far off DiGi’s.
The fight is not so much on devices as pricing is somewhat fixed by Apple; the tussle is in tariff pricing. DiGi’s killer package is its lowest all-in-one price of RM106 per month. The setback in this is that you are married to DiGi for 36 months.
Fear not, number portability allows you to sign up with one operator and port with another. Just get the best deal that suits you.
Small they may be compared with laptops and desktops, but smartphones are the ones that can spur the growth of mobile Internet in this country. This device has changed the way people communicate, work and play.
But there are issues in the industry and missing 3G signals is high on the list as this frustrates users who fail to get data at the speed they want. The norm is about nine seconds to get to a site but some people have to wait two minutes. The easy way out is blame coverage, the phone or its antennae but the problem is more deeply rooted.
The solution, according to an expert, is that operators need to add more Node Bs – these are 3G base stations – in existing and new sites, increase more backhaul capacity for nodes and to do this they need to use fibre optics to the backhaul from the Node B rather than using microwave; and refresh to newer generation of Node Bs that offer higher throughput per node. All these will significantly increase capacity, speed, coverage and quality
This means more capital expenditure. The issue is not about the operator’s willingness, but about how fast they realise their networks are choked and start deploying to avoid mass exodus of subscribers.
In the United States and Europe, operators have gone into selling Femtocells to improve quality of indoor wireless coverage. Femtocells is like your own personal node-B that resembles the WiFi router in appearance. Plug into your fixed line broadband connection and it creates a personal bubble for your signal and throughput.
The sad part is users have to pay for Femtocell, in Britain it is £50. The debate is on whether users or the operator should bear the cost of improving signal and throughput.
With more smartphones hitting the market this year in Malaysia, should the local 3G operators be thinking of Femtocells and would they ship the Femtocells for each iPhone they sell until they fix their network throughput issues?
Deputy news editor B.K. Sidhu believes number portablity is a good way to grab the best deals in town.
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/4/2/business/5981009&sec=business
No comments:
Post a Comment