[kictanet] Pondering mobile competition

Wed Aug 25 14:41:07 EAT 2010

Andrea,

yes, indeed these are interesting times. but not for me, at least not yet.  

The high costs of voice communications have for a very longtime socialized me into the (peculiar?) habit of NOT talking. I have grown used to alternative means of communication and just feel too old to suddenly start yapping. So of what use is 20bob, 8bob, 3bob, 2bob or even 1bob per minute voice call if I rarely talk anyway ;-)

My prayer is that these price wars will eventually move over from the Voice to Data (internet) markets.  That will be the day I will really get excited...

walu.
nb: me-still-thinks Zain will not cause any significant dent on Safcom 80% existing market share but shall instead gain 80% of all the NEW subscribers over the next couple of months...but perharps am just being biased since am told the Zain new owners have the money to sustain "loses" for longer periods of time(even 5yrs) in order to cause a serious dent on the market leader's position. May the best man and woman win.

--- On Tue, 8/24/10, Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt at ratio-magazine.com> wrote:

From: Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt at ratio-magazine.com>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Pondering mobile competition
To: jwalu at yahoo.com
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 4:38 PM

The 'abuse' complaint was silly, I think: Zain's network was congested from day one of their tariff launch. I'm sure, very very sure, that telecoms professionals at both Zain and Bharti are, well, professional enough to anticipate the need to increase network capacity if they launch such an aggressive tariff. 

You've seen the fun little leaked exchange between Rene Meza and Michael Joseph - Zain approached Safaricom in the evening asking for capacity on the Safaricom-owned link, and Joseph promised to look into this in the morning. The interconnection agreement between both companies states that this protocol can take up to seven days, as far as I understand. 

http://www.ratio-magazine.com/201008203586/Kenya/News-Analysis-Telecoms-Price-Wars-Gone-Dirty.html

Either they could have just increased capacity before the launch, or, if they were worried about alerting Safaricom to this, then just suck up and tell customers that the network will be congested for another seven days. 

So for Zain to come out the next morning and shout about abuse is 
dishonest and a cheap marketing ploy that I think they really don't 
need. 

I'm a happy capitalist. Competition is a good thing, in Kenya as elsewhere. So I'd like them to compete on the strength of their services and concepts, not by overnight accusations of 'abuse'. 

Mind you, if Zain kill of Orange and Essar, we'll have a bit less competition in terms of numbers, but hey ... :) 

Happy phone calls, 
Andrea 

On 24 August 2010 14:34, Emmanuel Khisa <oloo.khisa at googlemail.com> wrote:

Hi Andreas,

You have spoken for me on this one...I have also wondered since zain/bharti lodged their complaint with CCK over clogged network, were they just playing spoilt kid or do they have a valid claim? My opinion is that since they have experienced an unanticipated rise in subscribers they didnt have the network infrastructure to support these calls and so quickly blame the rival and make them look bad. But then again maybe they have a valid case against the boys in green.

Nonetheless the winner here is the consumer. Shall we safely say that we have entered the third mobile revolution.

On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt at ratio-magazine.com> wrote:

I'm wondering: 

Will CCK strictly enforce the cut-off deadline for unregistered SIM cards at the end of August? Are Zain making sure that everyone picking up a new line also register them immediately? 

If price war is Zain's strategy, will they have enough money left to invest in infrastructure and customer service once their subscriber numbers go up significantly? Will they be able to scale up both systems quickly enough? 

Telkom Orange are cited in the media as complaining that the interconnect rate also applies to their fixed line service and that this is not even covering their costs (http://www.nation.co.ke/business/news/Telkom%20unhappy%20with%20interlink%20fee/-/1006/995372/-/o9pm5az/-/). I wonder if the two big ones having it out won't kill the two small ones first? 

Bharti/Zain have also launched free sms alongside lower on and off-net calling rates and free minutes in Nigeria: http://telecomyatra.afaqs.com/news/?sid=1652_Bharti+subsidiary+Zain+introduces+free+SMS+in+Nigeria

Happy afternoon, 
Andrea 

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