Telenor giving checkmate to the industry with unlimited data in Hungary

Telenor did not only surprise its subscribers with unlimited data traffic, but also its competition. The reactions to the new package of the conservative service only appear in the form of promotions so far.

According to HWSW.hu, the two rival companies probably did not foresee that Telenor Hungary was going to come up with new smartphone tariffs that provide unlimited data traffic, at least according to the recent statements of the operators. Hello Data came in a quite bad time for Telekom and Vodafone anyway as the former one also renewed its entire mobile tariff portfolio this spring, and the latter one introduced its promotion with almost unlimited data (Adatmilliomos).

Have no fear, unlimited data is here

Reviving Telekom Hungary’s promotion from last year and countering Vodafone’s “Adatmilliomos” campaign, Telenor provides unlimited data traffic during the three summer months for áll customers who subscribed for Mobil L or XL and accepted two years of loyalty.

An important difference between Vodafone’s and Telekom’s promotion is that the former one does not attach the preferential period to any exact data, and it automatically activates the unlimited (officially 1 million Mb) data quota to those who prolong their Red subscription or claim a new one. The promotion is opt-in type at Telekom, which means that this unlimitedness must be activated in a Telekom application.

Though Telekom makes a long list of the advantages of unlimited data (especially during the summer and vacation season) in today’s press release, the senior management of Telekom supported the new portfolio in their recent statements. “If we discuss unlimitedness as an offer, we see that our tariffs provide exactly what our clients currently need. Most of our users transfer a couple of GB’s of data monthly, and this volume would not be significantly higher if we offered namely unlimited portfolios, while those who long for a larger data traffic are able to choose even a 30-GB pack as well,” chief executive officer of Telekom Christopher Mattheisen told portfolio.hu.

The service truly has a 30-GB mobile internet offer in their new portfolio, its cost with its minimal sound package (Mobil S, 80 minutes or SMSs included monthly) is 39 euros with two years of loyalty. Telenor’s cheapest Hello Data S tariff with minimal talking minutes (50 minutes or SMSs) costs exactly the half of it, moreover, it does not require loyalty, so the major consumers of mobile data might be better off with Telenor’s offer.

Also, we should not forget about the aspect of the connection between the average monthly data traffic per customer and the data limit of the tariffs and their costs. So as long as customers think that the mobile data traffic is expensive and they need to pay a higher upkeep for the higher limit tariffs, their consumption will not increase significantly. We might observe the same psychological effect in this case as in the case of roaming to which the customers approach with the attitude that calling is expensive abroad, so many of the subscribers don’t even turn their smartphone on when leaving their country.

Unlimited sound good, unlimited data bad

Vice president of Vodafone Hungary’s Branch of Enterprise Services István Király also gave a statement about Telenor’s unlimited offer. Though Vodafone came up with an unlimited offer first (Red tariffs), Király highlighted in a radio interview that while time limits talking (so nobody will call 24 hours a day just because they can do it), unlimited data packs might help customers to overload the network.

Concerning network capacity, Vodafone Hungary has the largest reserve in this field, as it has to satisfy less subscribers in a spectrum unit. The service’s situation is even encumbered by the fact that Telekom and Telenor share the LTE800 network’s radio capacity, thus improving their cell capacity in the countryside.

We learned from a non-official source that despite the statements, Vodafone is working hard on an offer that resembles Hello Data in order to counter Telenor’s service. This new offer might be introduced in the following days.

Ce: bm

Source: HWSW.hu