Gloves off as big two get mobile

By PETER GRIFFIN

The country's two major mobile network operators are on the brink of a price war, with Telecom's pricing for its new cdma (code division multiple access) network substantially undercutting user costs for Vodafone's gprs (general packet radio services) network.

A series of mobile plans released by Telecom yesterday show an entry-level monthly charge of $5, including one megabyte of free data transmission.

The real call charges come after the free limit has been reached when additional data transmissions are charged at 3.5c per 5Kb. Low volume users also have the option of paying as they go, avoiding a monthly fee but facing a charge of 4c per 5Kb.

The cdma network will offer Telecom customers data transmission speeds of up to 14.4Kbps (kilobits per second) allowing reasonably swift transmission of small data files.

Both Vodafone and Telecom claim to be looking for mainly corporate customers, with mobile workforces considered ideal users.

Telecom's customer migration manager, Nick Horton, says users will be able to connect their handsets to a laptop, to send data directly from mail applications such as Outlook Express. Roaming agreements have also been set up, he says.

"Get off the plane in Melbourne or Sydney, turn your phone on and you'll be connected to the Telstra or Orange mobile networks over there. Roaming is also possible in the US and we're also looking at extending it to Hong Kong, Canada and parts of Asia," says Mr Horton.

Vodafone surprised the industry last month when it revealed its pricing structure for gprs, which has an average data transmission speed of 20-40Kbps at $30 per megabyte.

However, Vodafone spokeswoman Alison Sykora says the network operator's pricing stacks up well against international comparisons.

"We can only assume Telecom is heavily discounting in order to try to get a foot in the market," she says.

"Vodafone offers a technology that is an add-on to the GSM network. Globally 500 million people use GSM phones and developers of new applications worldwide are focusing on where the market is largest," says Ms Sykora, comparing the rival mobile network standards to the battle between VHS and Betamax for the videotape industry.

"Ask any consumer if they'd go out today and buy a Beta video Machine even if it was only $50."

In Auckland for the launch of his company's handsets to the NZ market, Murray Grinston of handset manufacturer Kyocera said cdma boasted better call quality than gprs.

"What you'll find with cdma is that background noise is stripped out and voice is focused on. It also has a faster data speed than most other technologies."

Along with the release of Telecom's cdma pricing structure came the handsets that will allow faithful Telecom upgraders to connect to the cdma network.

Samsung, Kyocera and Hyundai have aligned themselves with Telecom. Under Telecom's cdma prepaid offering the handsets are generally selling for $300 to $500.

The Kyocera Smartphone, which incorporates a Palm V PDA (personal digital assistant), will be available next month and a handset from Samsung doubling as an MP3 player will be pitched at the youth market.

Telecom's cdmaOneX service is due this year and is expected to provide speeds of up to 144kbps, but cdmaOne users will have to upgrade their phones again to get the higher speeds. Pricing for the planned service has not yet been released.



Ms Sykora says Vodafone has no plans to support in the near future the handset brands Telecom has opted for.

It is favouring larger manufacturers Ericsson and Motorola.

Even at the top end of the market a comparison still sees Vodafone looking like an expensive option. Vodafone allows up to 30 MB of data transmission for $190, compared to Telecom's monthly fee of $100, which comes with 70MB of free transmission. Additional data packets are sent at the rate of 1c per 5kb.

Whichever way bandwidth-hungry mobile users go, current offerings from either camps will be dwarfed with the arrival of true 3G (third-generation mobile) networks in 2003 at the earliest.

With data speed of 2Mbps and above, the streaming video, fully interactive features and seamless internet access that have been dangled in front of users but never delivered may soon be on the way.

Links


www.vodafone.co.nz/pricingplan/06.2.1_gprs.jsp" target="new">Vodafone's GPRS Rate Plan

Telecom

Cellular online