Tele2 Netherlands Starts Business Plans With Up to 4 TB of Data

Starting on 2 November, Tele2 Netherlands is introducing new business subscriptions and Company Bundles for employees to share. The plans are offered as SIM-only or with handsets. All subscriptions come with unlimited calls, while the data bundles vary from 1 to 24 GB per employee. Subscriptions of 100 minutes/100 SMS and a data-only plans are also available. The Company Bundles offer shared data allowances of 20, 50, 100 or 500 GB, or 1, 2 or 4 TB.  

 

We have written previously in these pages about the trend toward increased flexibility in mobile plan offerings, driven mainly by consumer demand. Consumers, motivated by budgets and by diversity and changeability of usage habits, have been demanding more options from their mobile operators. However, this growing need for flexibility is apparently affecting the business sector, as well, as exemplified by this slate of offerings from Tele2 Netherlands. Appreciating the fact that businesses’ plans for employees need to cater to a diversity of needs in terms of data and voice use, the Dutch MNO is allowing companies to purchase subscriptions so that employees need not all have the same allowances. Handset and SIM-only options address the fact that some employees are on a BYOD basis while others are not. Finally, the huge bundles of data at the top of the slate reflect the fast-growing hunger for data even among business clients, who may not be streaming massive amounts of entertainment content but may be performing job functions that consume a great deal of data. In short, offering flexibility in its plans for business customers as well as for consumers is a smart move for MNOs today.

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Bouygues Telecom’s Second-Line Offer Addresses BYOD Concerns

French mobile operator Bouygues Telecom has introduced B.duo, a service that allows the operator’s personal and business subscribers—as well as customers of its budget arm, B & You—to add a second line to their smartphones at a monthly cost of €2.00 (US $2.64). The service does not require a second phone or a dual SIM card. Instead it works with a single SIM, and specific prefixes are used to determine which line a call or SMS should be routed to or from where it has originated.

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) adoption by large numbers of businesses is a movement that has experienced considerable growth worldwide. It appears that this trend will continue, with forecasts estimating the BYOD and enterprise mobility market to be worth US $284.7 billion in 2019, which is a substantial increase from 2013’s value of US $72.34 billion. Although North America is expected to have the largest market for BYOD, significant increases are also expected in Europe and Asia. While operators are experiencing the same privacy and security concerns all over the world, they are wise to offer services that their particular markets will find appealing when devising solutions for BYOD use.

In France, Bouygues Telecom’s B.duo offers a good solution for the concerns that have been triggered by BYOD use. Having two numbers on one SIM card will allow professionals to have a dedicated line for business use and one for personal calls and SMS, on the same mobile phone. Additionally, there are several other instances in which two lines are valuable in a BYOD environment; for example, users may choose to associate one of the lines with a specific need, which will enable them to direct all calls and SMS pertaining to that issue to the line in question. As an added bonus, B.duo is convenient to activate and is being offered by the MNO at relatively low cost. We expect that these are factors that will encourage use of the service as an alternative to OTT options.

Another approach to distinguishing personal from business use in the BYOD phenomenon is being provided by South Korea’s SK Telecom in partnership with Red Bend Software, a global software and solutions provider. SK Telecom, which is South Korea’s top mobile operator, is launching its T Persona Premium service on LG Electronic’s LG-F350ST smartphone, which will provide customers with two mobile numbers and allow them to separate personal from business use. The LG device is only available from SK Telecom and uses two different operating systems that have been embedded into it to separate the business and personal data.

 The above item appeared in a recent issue of The Tarifica Alert, a weekly resource that analyzes noteworthy developments in the telecoms industry from around the world. To access all of the latest articles and issues:  http://www.tarifica.com/TarificaAlert.aspx

Notable Regional Developments

Asia/Pacific

Broadband service provider Qubee Pakistan has partnered with mobile money services provider Upaisa, a division of Pakistani mobile operator Ufone, to provide a bill payment service, leveraged through Ubank, to its customers. This will enable Qubee customers to pay their bills through Upaisa mobile accounts in addition to paying them at Ufone Service Centers, Ubank branches or Upaisa outlets across Pakistan.

Europe

Estonian mobile operator EMT has introduced 4G/LTE services for its prepaid internet users. The operator says its offering is the first one in the country that will enable these users to have access to a 4G connection. EMT’s Pay As You Go Internet is most popular during the summer months, because many Estonians spend the season in cottages that are not their year-round homes and therefore do not want to subscribe to long-term contracts. EMT will not increase the cost of the service with this upgrade.

Latin America

Ecuadorian telecommunications regulator, Conatel, is implementing regulations that will help to enable a passive infrastructure sharing agreement among operators in the country. Passive infrastructure includes, among other things, towers and power supply, and the goal of the sharing is to optimize resources as operators deploy networks.

Middle East/Africa

Ooredoo Qatar has launched a new range of Hala Smart Cards, which will provide options that include very low voice and data allotments for its prepaid customers. The QAR 5.00 (US $1.37) card includes 15 local voice minutes/SMS and 30 MB of data, the QAR 15.00 (US $4.12) card comes with 50 local voice minutes/SMS and 100 MB of data and the QAR 35.00 (US $9.61) card offers 120 local voice minutes/SMS and 250 MB of data. All of the cards are valid for 30 days.

North America

Syntonic Wireless, an AT&T sponsored data provider, has introduced the Syntonic Sponsored Content store, which will allow AT&T subscribers to access mobile content that will not be charged against their data allowances. The data charges will be billed to the sponsoring company. Through Syntonic, content and applications providers can promote their brands by providing services to their target audiences. AT&T envisions movie production companies, game manufacturers and healthcare providers to be among those that offer sponsored data products such as movie trailers, the ability to play games and support for patients, respectively. Small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises may also be sponsored data providers in BYOD situations.  Bills can be segmented to provide employees with company-sponsored data access to the business’ resources and applications, while employees will pay for data accessed for personal use.

The above item appeared in a recent issue of The Tarifica Alert, a weekly resource that analyzes noteworthy developments in the telecoms industry from around the world. To access all of the latest articles and issues:  http://www.tarifica.com/TarificaAlert.aspx