Telkomsel… where are you?

The good thing is Telkomsel (50%+ market share) is not jumping the price war bandwagon… sort of…

But they might feel the heat a bit, especially in the lower end segment. So recently promoted is "call for 2 minutes and get 3 more minutes free" for Kartu As (low-end prepaid).

Attractive? Probably not so, compared to XL. Let's say for 5-minute on-net call, Telkomsel charges Rp 20/sec x 120 sec (the next 180 sec is free) = Rp 2400/5-minute; while XL charges Rp 600 sampai puassss.

Anyway, they also launched a promo for post-paid subscribers.

• free minute for on-net, up to 60 minutes (T&C applies, I think depends on your monthly usage)
• free "You've Got Mail" feature (Rp 15.000/month)
• free TelkomselPoin bonus (kind of credit card reward points/frequent flyer miles)

A bit difficult for Telkomsel. They are the market leader, dominant position. Need to plan their moves carefully, so that they are not violating anti-monopoly / anti-trust / fair-competition acts/laws.

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Look Ma, no tables!

Intensifying the price war… Indosat strikes back at XL. Position themselves as "no t&c" which is an irony for XL (previously known as no term and conditions).

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XL Belum Puas?

To reiterate the recent campaign. They put this one full page in Kompas Minggu.

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XL: “Rp 600 all you can eat”

Today XL formally launched the "Rp 0,00000…1" campaign (link). There's a big change however – probably due to strong criticism; the long zero's is no longer mentioned. Instead the ad now says "lowest rate to all operators, guaranteed" and "Rp 600 sampai puasssss" (translation: all you can eat).

Probably this is to attack Fren "Rp 700" Promo.

Rephrase: XL 0,00000…1

Wait a moment… is it Rp 600 to all operators or only on-net? Of course you have to read the fine prints to understand what they really doing AND to find that they misled people…. again…

Six hundred rupiah is for on-net (between XL subscribers), and only between 23:00 – 10:59 in Jabotabek. For other case, good luck… still pretty low, but they are different rates:

• basically they give free call after a certain seconds – depends on where you are and what time the call is made
• there's a positive thing: for Sumatera, NTT, Ambon, Papua, it is even lower — free after 30 seconds (so practically Rp 300 all you can eat).
• NTT, Ambon and Papua even enjoy this free-after-30-sec longer: 19 hours, from 23:00 – 18:00 WIT (or 21:00 – 16:00 WIB), great!

The interesting part is the off-net tariff… the "free" part is only for the 3rd to 10th minute. So here it goes:

• 0 – 2 minute: Rp 25/sec
• 3 – 10 minute: free
• >10: Rp 10/sec

So costs for 1-, 2-, 3-, 10-, 11-, 12-minute call are respectively  (in IDR) 1500, 3000, 3000, 3000, 3600, 4200, …
Confusing enough? "Tanpa Syarat dan Ketentuan"

Secondly, I am wondering, whether this applies to my post-paid subscription? Probably not.

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More Zeros…

More zeros than you…

I have more zeros than you… is the name of the game. Few days ago, less than a week in fact, XL announced they have 0.00000…1 tariff (six zeros). Now Indosat came with 11 zeros. So it seems that your call is free after 90 seconds. Again this applies not just for on-net but also for off-net calls. (Wondering whether they make money at all…)

Indosat website is down (from my LAN) at this moment so no further details

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XL Price Cap?

On Saturday, I spotted another shocking one-third page ad… XL (translated) said that "timed calls are now outdated!"

XL Flat Rate Ad – Teaser

On the next page came this:

XL Flat Rate Ad – Inside

Basically they kind of capped the off-net call rate to Rp 3000,- per call. Flat rate, all you can eat. Of course there are terms and conditions…. (More when I found the details on their website).

Update

Yes, it is capping the call rate, kind of. After a certain minute, depending on the time of day, the call cost you Rp 0.00000…1 per sec (or practically FREE).

For on net calls, here's the T&C:

• Rp 10/sec for the first NNN seconds, then…
• 23:00 – 10:59, free after 60 sec.
• 11:00 – 18:59, free after 120 sec.
• 19:00 – 22:59, free after 180 sec.

For off-net calls, I still don't get it, the press release seems confusing (is it free after 2, 3, 4, or 10 minutes?):

Untuk telepon antara operator, pengguan XL bebas juga tetap dapat menikmati manfaat telepon sampai puas (Rp 0,00000…1 atau setara gratis) setelah menit ke 2 – 10. Adapun tarif di menit pertama adalah Rp 25/detik dan setelah 10 menit Rp 10/detik. Tarif di atas sudah termasuk PPN dan berlaku di Jabodetabek, Jawa Barat, Jawa Tengah, DI Yogyakarta, Jawa Timur, Bali, Lombok.

http://www.xl.co.id/Korporat/Ruang_Media/Siaran_Pers/XL_bebas_Tetap_Termurah

Guess I have to wait until they got a decent explanation.

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1-cent Call

One cent can not buy anything (in physical world) in Indonesia. But you can make a one second call with that…
Just launched today, another retaliation move in the recent telco price war. This time it's Indosat.

According to the terms and conditions:

• the first 90 seconds cost Rp 15/sec (or Rp 25/sec for off-net)
• and only after that it will cost you 1cent per second – so Rp 6 per minute, which is basically free

Who has the cheapest tariff for off-net to other mobile subscriber now? Difficult to answer, depending on how long you're going to talk.

	1 min.	2 min.	3 min.			4 min.	5 min.
Esia*	800	1600	2400			3200	4000
Fren	700	1400	2100			2800	3500
XL Bebas	1500	3000	3006			3012	4512
IM3	1500	2250.30	2250.90			2251.50*	2252.10*

Notes:

• All prices in IDR
• Esia rate is for local mobile calls
• I still have to cross check Indosat's T&C after the third minutes – website's down so can't get any details
• I did not take into account the VAT and the market price of the prepaid vouchers – they may add or subtract 5-10% of the above prices…

See… interesting…

0.01

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