Technology market research firm ABI reported that Indonesia and the UK have the lowest mobile broadband pricing plans compared to most other Asian, European, and American countries. In general, telecommunications companies in Asia do have low prices, primarily because of the government interference in controlling the price in response to fierce competition among the telcos.
Indosat, an Indonesian telco, promotes unlimited data on StarOne packages for $5 to $14. Other rival telcos such as XL Axiata and Telkomsel have offered similarly priced packages. Meanwhile in the UK, T-Mobile is promoting its Mobile Broadband Plus plan for US$ 15.47. For other telcos, many of them implement per-hour or per-packet plans.
Affordable pricing is driven primarily by increasing demand for mobile data services in line with rapid development of mobile industry. In our interview with Singapore technology expert, Alfred Siew on the rise of the mobile industry in Southeast Asia, he said:
In Indonesia, for example, BlackBerry is huge because users who love to message each other rely on the BlackBerry messaging system and telcos’ low-cost data plans to chat all day. Singapore, meanwhile, is quite similar to European cities in usage. While in Philippines, messaging is one of the hottest mobile apps.
Unfortunately, affordable pricing cannot fully compensate for the quality of broadband networks in Indonesia. Unlike other countries in Asia, Indonesia’s network is still improving, so for the moment, people still need to pay a little more to get the maximum service.
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