The race to sell cells

4 July 2008

It’s an expensive choice, whether you are a Tashi Cell user or a B-Mobile client, but you have a choice, and that is down to who provides better services at cheaper rates.

In the battle to capture customers, Tashi Cell and B-Mobile have introduced many new value added services and revised the rates, seemingly to the benefit of the customers.

Tashi Cell has facilities like Friends and Family (F&F), Caller Ring Back Tone (CRBT), Missed Call notification (MCN), Closed User Group (CUG) and they have also introduced a GPRS/EDGE and MMS facilities. They also have the service of transferring balance and they are working on giving the facility of negative balance.

B-Mobile also has most of these facilities and they will soon come up with a CUG, F&F, CRBT and 3G video phone through pre-paid, which will be a scoop as its only available for post-paid subscribers at the moment. “We have plans to reduce tariff on all mobile data services in order to benefit the customers,” said Tandi Wangchuk, the general manager of B-Mobile.

While Tashi Cell has reduced their pulse unit time from 30 to 15 seconds, the pulse unit time of B-Mobile remains at 20 seconds. A prepaid user calling from B-Mobile to B-mobile is charged 90 Cheltrums, while a Tashi Cell to Tashi Cell call costs 40 Cheltrums- during peak hours.

A B-Mobile user calling Tashi cell pays Nu 3.25 for a minute while a Tashi Cell user calling B-Mobile pays 50 Cheltrums. Tandi Wangchuk said that Bhutan Telecom wanted to revise the rates and the internal management had approved it but BICMA (as the regulator) did not. After Tashi Cell came into the market, there has been a lot of revision in the rates and introduction of new value added services for B-Mobile users.

Tashi Tshering, the executive director of Tashi Infocom Limited, said.“Presently Tashi Cell has its network in six dzongkhags and by the end of next year we will try to cover most of the dzongkhags.” He said that they were struggling to get customers because B-Mobile had already captured the market. Nonetheless, Tashi Cell’s entrance in the market has affected B-Mobile. Tandi Wangchuk said that on an average, they had about 6,000 new customers every month before Tashi Cell went mobile, now they serve about 3,000 customers a month.

Although B-Mobile is facing a tough competition, Tandi Wangchuk said he was positive that the competition was good for the consumers. “They have choices and it also benefits operators like us, as we can improve a lot on the quality and the cost can be reduced.” Wangay Dorji from BICMA said they have six months asymmetric regulation in which rates could be revised only after every six months, so after the end of August, B-Mobile can revise their rates.

He said this was done in order to promote competition and give space for Tashi Cell to grow. B-Mobile’s peak hours are 3 pm to 11 pm and off peak hours are from 7 am to 3 pm, while Tashi Cell’s peak hours starts from 9 am to 9 pm and standard hours from 8 am to 6 pm. While Tashi has 28,000 users today, B-Mobile has 190,000 users.

Meanwhile, Wangmo, a frequent mobile user, (she uses both Tashi Cell and B-Mobile) said that although the rates of Tashi Cell are cheaper, she has to use both because Tashi Cell’s network is not as vast as B-Mobile’s. Selling the cell is beginning to heat up.

By Tandin Pem

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