Now that the incumbents have started rolling out 3G Plans across selected cities, the cost of 3G Access for a customer is very very expensive compared to the ARPU of < Rs 200 [National Average]. However, the main targets of 3G service during the initial launch is only premium customers and the ones who have subscribed to Data Plans such as Blackberry, etc.
I had a peek into the comparison of 3G tariffs offered by the incumbents in Mumbai & Maharashtra. Bharti Airtel is the most expensive while Tata DoCoMo & Reliance are the least.
What is the Proposal for Customer Friendly Billing Plan ?
In the past we have had the Market-force and Technology decide the billing plans for consumer. Tata DoCoMO came up with per second billing, while Uninor embraced the Baldata Discount Plan based on traffic [ Concept of Cloud]. Similarly, I request the following from 3G service providers.
- Minimum of Next Higher Bill Plan or Additional Usage Billing: For instance, an Idea Cellular customer who has chosen a 1 GB data plan and ends up using 1.5 GB, his bill according to current billing module will be Rs 675 + Rs 5000 [ Additional Usage at Rs 10 / MB] so the Telco must automatically bill him according to the next higher Bill Plan available in their system i.e 2 GB and reduce the customer bill to Rs 755. Alternatively, if a customer ends up using just 1 MB over his specified plan of 1 GB , then he shall be billed just for that Rs 10 + Rs 675. Telecom Operators must offer this benefit to the consumer or a variant of this idea so that consumer is benefitted.
- Alert and Max Bill CAP of Rs 10,000: Very often an ignorant customer falls in the trap of his service provider as he may have chosen the wrong billing plan and ends up using lot more. First & Foremost, Telecom operator must alert the user of his usage and warn him of the consequences. Taking into account the Minimum Billing consideration as discussed above, Telecom Operators must introduce a CAP of Rs 10,000 Max on 3G Bill or a variant of it.
I am a very strong advocate of Unlimited Data Plans and Limited Data Plans never made sense to me [Well, choice offered in Wired Broadband is pretty good]. However, with Billions of Dollars spent in CAPEX, Telcos are in no mood to give consumers a free ride on the super highway and want their RoE, RoCE, etc to be in Black rather than in Red. I have no hopes from our Government / DoT / TRAI to protect consumers but launch of LTE sometime in 2012 will soften the 3G data rates. Guess the days of Telecom companies to ring their Cash Registers are back 🙂