Post #22,732
12/31/01 4:50:48 AM
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"Prepaid plans dominant in Europe" - fact or speculation?
Tony writes: "In Europe, prepaid plans are dominant..." -- do you know that for a fact (supported by which stats?), or is it just your "seat of the pants" feeling?
The only people I know with "prepaid plans" -- assuming that means the "My [SIM] card is empty [of money], so I only carry my mobile to recieve calls" usage pattern? -- are riff-raff like my kid sisters... Real people's mobiles, in my experience, work just like any other phone: You talk, and then you're billed. (Or, perhaps more usually, your employer is billed.)
I'd have thought there are still more normal, employed people like myself, than rural welfare mothers... You got any evidence to back up what you're saying, Tony?
Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
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Post #22,733
12/31/01 6:18:43 AM
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Concur
Here in arguably the most mobile-crazy country in Europe (I /think/ we've overtaken the Finns in mobile-mania), there's a clear split between those on a contract (like me) and those on pay-as-you-talk schemes. Basically, if you can't get a contract because you can't afford it, are a bad credit risk, don't have a direct-debit capable bank account, or whatever, you go pay-as-you-talk.
People like me who can't be fussed with faffing about with vouchers and such, and like a new free phone every year, that's insured lest I drop it in my beer, go contract.
One thing's for sure - the mobile companies want people OFF the pay-as-you-talk regimes. The prices for those are going steadily up (I think the cost of an SMS message is now about 15p on PAYT versus 3p for me on my Orange contract), because pay-as-you-talk is quite simply not compatible with always-on arrangements like GPRS and G3.
In short, the riffraff have PAYT, whilst us professionals :) have contracts.
Peter
Shill For Hire
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
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Post #22,734
12/31/01 7:25:34 AM
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Now there's some interesting observations.
... and not surprisingly, the mobile phone market in Oz is different again!
Contracts are very popular here, mostly because that's what the companies push the most. The advantage for the end-user is the new phone, but the companies like it for the lock-in and that they shift new phones. However, the carriers like to quietly reward people who've fallen off the end of the contract and now pay a mere monthly bill by offering a slight discount for staying with them for a time - sort of like a pseudo-contract. I guess the churn of customers switching carriers all the time is unattractive to them! :-)
SMS, though, is fairly popular, but I don't really know how much. I have a friend who uses it quite frequently and often as a replacement for email. OTOH, many people only really know about them when they get voicemail (the service sends an SMS when you have voicemail waiting) and have no idea to send their own!
SMS messages are almost always 20c a message but there are ways to get them free. Optus (one of our carriers), for instance, has some clever schemes that let you send a number for free in a month, but you do have to send a lot for it to be worth it.
Wade.
"All around me are nothing but fakes
Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
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Post #22,737
12/31/01 7:45:20 AM
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Sure it's not...
The prices for those are going steadily up ...Supply & Demand that's fuelling those price increases? *grin*
Imric's Tips for Living- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Post #22,781
1/1/02 4:18:36 AM
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Can you say...
..."Cartel"?
Thought you could :-)
Peter
Shill For Hire
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
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Post #22,750
12/31/01 2:35:16 PM
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It'll cost a $2-3K to know for sure but prepaid is popular
Two numbers to show this:
June 2001 Telefonica:
67% (10,000,000) pre-paid
33% (5,000,000) contract
March 2000 Vodafone 58% prepaid
In the US, pre-paid is extremely small -- for example, I don't know anyone with pre-paid and only recently have the companies started advertising it (or offering decent deals, which still aren't as good as pre-paid in Europe).
To get the better numbers, you'll have to be better at googling than me, or pay a lot of money for a market report.
I don't doubt the Euro cell companies are trying to get more people on contract. I also agree with Odlyzko's "Content is NOT king".
I'd also be curious to know more about SMS usage. I suspect it may be most common with pre-paid users -- and by the youth (<25 year old) market. For example, none of people in this discussion seemed really interested in SMS. I didn't see any hard numbers on SMS usage, however.
And, CDMA usage is a lot more widespread than I realized -- for example, in Australia, the Philippines, and other Asian countries, not just Korea. It's also the fastest growing cell technology.
So, as always, the Reg is an interesting read but definitely not the final word.
Tony
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Post #22,782
1/1/02 4:22:00 AM
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I use SMS
Not obsessively, but for a message that's not time-critical and basically says something like "see you in the pub at 5", SMS is handy - especially when people don't have time or freedom to pick up the phone. You can read a text message much faster than listening to me mumbling to an answering service.
Peter
Shill For Hire
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
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Post #22,784
1/1/02 8:43:34 AM
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SMS rocks my little world
SMS usage in Aus has grown at an explosive rate since inter-carrier SMS was switched on. (Like, how dumb was it to not be able to send SMS from one company to another. Duh.)
It's so popular, Telstra, the no-we're-not-acting-like-a-Monopoly, has jacked up the price to 25c per message, because of 'heavy usage' or somesuch bollocks.
On and on and on and on,
and on and on and on goes John.
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Post #22,788
1/1/02 9:05:22 AM
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But, but...
Isn't 25 cents about 0.1p or something?
:-p
Peter
Shill For Hire
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
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Post #22,789
1/1/02 9:28:51 AM
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Shift that decimal to the left a bit :)
On and on and on and on,
and on and on and on goes John.
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Post #22,790
1/1/02 9:37:10 AM
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$AUS : The currency that makes Lira look strong :-)
Peter
Shill For Hire
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
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Post #22,843
1/2/02 10:59:32 AM
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Prepaid vs. monthly
No, prepaid does not mean "your card is empty of money". It means you pay for every minute - speak less - pay less, speak more - pay more, don't speak - pay nothing (not really :).
Here in US, you get some minutes included in your your monthly fee. Normal rate seem to be 500 minutes for $30, gets better every year. So, unless you talk more than 500 minutes a month, it does not matter if you talked 20 of 490 min - you pay $30.
On one hand, it's a rip-off. On the other hand, it changes usaged patterns dramatically, especially when 500 minutes come with free long distance.
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Post #22,938
1/3/02 2:56:13 AM
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Weird, totally weird. Don't work that way here.
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