My take on the Singapore iPhone Price War and Data War

When M1 and Starhub first announced their price plans for the iPhones on Monday, the Mobile Marketing Association (Asia Pacific) created this Excel spreadsheet on Google Documents to facilitate conversations and provide a comparison chart for all existing iPhone plans and offerings by the three Telcos in Singapore.

SingTel, having been the exclusive carrier of the iPhone since it first came to Singapore in 2008, has been under a lot of pressure to match its offerings, namely the bundled data, as well as the excess data usage bill cap. And it did, of course.

While everyone calls this the 'iPhone Price War', I really think it should be termed the 'iPhone data war' instead. Neither SingTel, Starhub or M1 have, to date, reduced the price of their iPhone plans' subscription fees. Instead, all they have been doing is to increase the amount of bundled data for each plan. It's all a marketing gimmick. It looks as if they are offering you more value for your plan, but in reality (and I say this after being a user of unlimited mobile broadband for the last 2 years), none of us really use up the full 1GB in our basic mobile broadband plans. But, I digress.

M1, offering tariff rebates to existing SingTel iFlexi plan subscribers, are trying their hardest to get SingTel customers to jump ship (that is to say, break their contracts). However, the M1 tariff rebates apply only to iPhone owners who are subscribed to iFlexi plans, and those who have 6 months or less left on their SingTel contracts.

With the 3 Telcos fighting to offer more and more to existing or prospective customers, the war has just begun. Judging from the current situation, I think it would be best to wait out the first weekend, for those who are planning to get an iPhone from either of the 3 telcos.

Here's what may happen, in my opinion:

Customers of existing VAS Broadband on Mobile may see telcos offering higher bundled data for their mobile plans, as there have been outraged cries from existing customers under contract of regular 3G mobile/data plans, to close in on the gap. (Currently, BBOM subscribers get 1GB on their basic BBOM plans at $9.90 per month, while new iPhone plan subscribers get 12GB bundled data)
With M1 offering tariff rebates for existing iPhone owners to switch operators, Starhub may do the same. And who is to say that SingTel will not fight back to keep its customers by offering more value with its iFlexi plans?

And of course, with the Telcos offering more bundled data now, I think people will be wont to abusing it, and using their phone for Internet tethering (connecting your phone to a computer for internet connection) to download movies, music, etc. With the existing infrastructure, I really wonder if this bundled data war is a good idea.

M1 customers have been the loudest in complaining about its data connectivity and speed, while I've heard SingTel customers and Starhub customers say that the speed is drastically reduced during hours between 6pm to 10pm daily.

If the Telcos do not do something about this data situation at the moment, what may happen is that we will all end up with mobile broadband connections that are slow and inefficient, and the Telcos will have created this whole huge mess of having to answer to unhappy customers.

Loading mentions Retweet

Dec 09, 2009

Daryl Tay said...

I do agree with your outlook on the system. At the end of the day all M1 did with upping the data plan was change one aspect of the 'game', but eventually everyone gets back on the same playing field.

Although I do applaud them for being willing to shake up the status quo, temporary 'boosts' like higher data and iphone tariff rebates alone is just playing along the dimension of price, and as you've pointed out, they may be better off trying to change the data connectivity and speed dimension that their users are unhappy about too.

krisandro said...

Correct me if I am wrong but Singtel has a long standing offer to give customers $100 off their iPhone purchase if he/she switches telcos.

I for one welcome the increase in data offered by Singtel (Thanks M1!) to 12GB even though I may not potentially use anything close to that amount but I think the idea is that I may now use 3G more freely than I would and tethering is no longer a restriction for me compared to the times when I knew I only had 500MB to spare a month.

One man's gimmick is another man's capacity to download more er.... videos.

Whatever the Telcos may offer in view of a iPhone price/data/plan war, the users will still benefit in one way or another.

I bet Apple is smiling right now.

Mohamad Nazry said...

I can only look at amusement at this silly war. Perhaps the telcos do believe that people are silly as to believe that the 12GB dataplan gimmick is a good deal?

However, I do have concerns that the 3G infrastructure of the telcos are going to be stretched thin. This is a problem that AT&T, an American Telco, is having. Ignoring the poor coverage that it has, since its not really a fault of the Iphone, AT&T users are upset that their data connection is getting much poorer ever since Iphone users came by, using their unlimited data bundles and hogging up the bandwidth, just by using their Iphones to surf the web, and to download the plethora of apps in the Apple App store.

This is probably the reason why apple doesnt allow you to tether the Iphone to a computer for shared internet, but this is just my speculation.

And the reason why bluetooth functions are severely limited is probably because Apple wishes to prevent sharing of music purchased via the Itunes. Or vice versa. But then again this is another topic altogether.

I have always believed that if you truly want premium services, you should be prepared to pay premium prices. Which is why I am using Singtel as my data provider and telco. However, I am less than thrilled with the services, especially after those toy phones hit the market. Data connections are fast, and I never got a "network busy" error when i tried to make calls. Nowadays, it gets really bad during peak periods, that is 6pm to 10pm. At times dragging on till close to midnight.

Now this is before the "data" wars commenced. I shudder to think about all those young people hogging up the network whenever I need to access my mail.

But then again, it could be a good thing. Spread out the network hoggers across all the telcos to share the load, and just maybe the network infrastructure will be as fast as it used to be.

But then again, probably not. -_-

Dec 10, 2009

Wei-Meng said...

Daphne and Nazry, what are you describing is basically the effects of all three telcos overselling their data capacity.

You're right to say that the "competitive" price plans probably have not much impact on both the average consumer and even on the telco's profit margin.

The only thing that's going to happen is the data service degrading even further if the telcos are not able to keep up with their customer's data consumption.

You can read more about overselling and my view on the whole iPhone "price wars" here: http://weimeng.posterous.com/the-real-story-behind-the-singtel-m1-starhub

Daphne Maia

My take on the Singapore iPhone Price War and Data War

Comments (4)

Leave a comment...