The development of wireless communication mainly relies on two main lines, one is the open line, that is, technological progress. Technological progress has brought about business changes. Wireless technology has evolved from 1G to 5G, and business forms have continued to evolve. The other is the dark line, that is, tariff innovation, which uses tariff differentiation to deal with homogeneous business competition. Technological progress will not be repeated here, the author mainly talks about unlimited packages along the line of tariff innovation.
Unlimited package is one of many tariff packages. To clarify its right and wrong, start with the role of tariff packages. As a carrier of tariff innovation, tariff packages have two main functions, one is competition, and the other is value preservation. The competition is better understood. Operators will develop and retain customers and expand the scale of users through price wars against their opponents. Under the supervision of the administrative department, the competition of early tariff packages mainly took the form of differentiation, showing relatively hidden price advantages. Although it is competition, operators still hope to maintain user value based on their business needs. Even if the price is brought down by competition, the value must be preserved through the package. Therefore, we will see rounds of tariff reductions. In most cases, the reduction is not the original cost of the tariff package, but the increase in the use of the original business in the tariff package, or the use of other services. . Coupled with assigning brands with specific meanings to different users, such as Global Communication, the role of this value retention is even more obvious.
It can be said that in the case of market undersaturation, as the user penetration rate continues to increase, operators have expanded the user scale and operated user value through tariff packages, and the two functions of competition and value preservation are well balanced. With the current unlimited packages, has the role of tariff packages changed? Nor is it. It's just that the relationship between competition and preservation is a bit out of balance.
Behind unlimited packagesWhat caused the operator to break the balance between competition and value preservation? This is caused by major changes in the basic communications market environment. As the market becomes more saturated, the cost for operators to acquire users continues to increase. At present, the large difference in package prices between new and old users of major operators illustrates this point. For the entire communication network of the entire network, the operator with the larger the user scale has a relatively small marginal cost shared by each user. Generally, leading operators with large user scales have relatively obvious competitive advantages, while operators with small scales suffer relatively.
When the market is not saturated, everyone has development. It’s just a matter of speed. Therefore, for a long period of time, tariff innovations have been operating under a limited number of packages + standard unit prices beyond packages, even Now, it is also the mainstream model. However, when the market is saturated with competition, small operators will find that the previous gameplay cannot continue, the competitiveness of conventional packages is not good, a large number of users begin to lose, the original user value slowly declines and the continuous expansion of user scale cannot be maintained. At this time, small operators are not facing the issue of development speed, but the issue of survival. The trial of unlimited packages has begun, and the follow-up of large operators has spread to the entire industry.
The emergence of unlimited packages reflects the problems of survival and development brought about by the unbalanced development of the industry in an increasingly saturated market, as well as the consequent changes in operators' thinking.
Unlimited brings right and wrongRecently, under the attention of the administrative department, unlimited packages have become a hot spot. There are many opinions on the right and wrong. For these right and wrong, I think it can be viewed this way. Operators in our country dare to boldly try unlimited packages. This pioneering and innovative spirit is still worth encouraging. As a result, it will also be of great benefit to the implementation of speed increase and fee reduction. As consumers, from the perspective of meeting demand, we do not want unlimited packages to be suspended, after all, this kind of tariff innovation can bring tangible benefits to users. For operators, it is imperative to manage the user expectations caused by unlimited packages.
Users have high expectations for the three words "unlimited", and hope that AT&T will not be punished by the Federal Communications Commission for allegedly misleading consumers for unlimited data packages, which will have a negative impact on the image of the industry. Operators also need to face up to the impact of unlimited packages on the long-term development of the industry. From the perspective of foreign implementation, it can attract competitors' high-end users in the short term and further stimulate users' consumption potential. However, if they blindly compete in homogenization, There are still concerns in the long run.
The driving force for future traffic growth lies in video content. The acquisition of AT&T and Time Warner is approved, which may provide operators with a paradigm that allows unlimited packages to go further, driven by differentiated services.
Shenzhen MovingComm Technology Co., Ltd. , https://www.movingcommtech.com