Press And Media

Key pricing trends for LTE services

The latest edition of the quarterly Tariff Consultancy Ltd’s Global LTE Tariff Tracker service now covering 126 operators’ offerings highlights the following key trends:

• Operators continue to expand the geographical coverage. e.g. O2 in the UK has rolled out its LTE network in another five cities with Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, and Sheffield now covered along with London, Leeds and Bradford. The operator plans to cover 13 cities by the end of this year. Telenor in Norway announced that it will cover 90 per cent with LTE by 2015.

• The 3^rd quarter edition reveals that operators have increased their portfolio with new plans. For example Ooredoo (Qatar) now offers all its plans with LTE access compared to when it launched and only the most expensive plan i.e. the unlimited plan) was available with LTE. 

• Subscriber numbers are rarely published; here are some of those that have been made public:
  - OrangeFranceclaims to have 250K LTE users on its network (Sept. 2013).
  - Swisscom has around 500K LTE users on its network (August 2013)
  - EE revealed that it has over 1 Million 4G customers (Sept. 2013)
  - SKT announced that it had 11 million LTE users, which accounts for 40% of its
    total customer base (July 2013)

• The average per month cost for monthly charged plans is Euro 49.70 (previous update Euro 48) inclusive of tax, average inclusive allowance is 18 GB (previous update 17 GB). These averages relate to offerings that are for accessing the network via Portable/PC (excludes Smartphone offerings) on a contract.

• Prepaid LTE has been launched by some operators, with Batelco one of these operators launching in August 2013. Batelco offers two prepaid bundles for BHD 15.00 (Euro 59) and BHD 30.00 (Euro 118) for 4 GB and 15 GB respectively. The network is throttled once this allowance has been used. Smart in the Philippineslaunched prepaid LTE in August and Mobitel in Slovenia in September 2013.

• Operators extend LTE to smartphone users. Elisa inEstonialaunched new SmartPhone plans, which for the first time give access to the operators LTE network. T-Mobile inAustriaannounced the same move recently.

• Operators continue to entice customers to take up LTE hence various promotions are on offer. Currently Bouygues Telecom (France) is offering new connections that take out a 4G SmartPhone plan with two months free rental. 

About the Global LTE Tariff Tracker

Launched in April 2012, the Global LTE Tariff Tracker comprises of a spreadsheet analysis, quarterly descriptive summaries and free customer service. The database covers pricing for both Mobile Broadband and Smartphone offerings and allows the subscriber to compare like-for-like offerings.

The latest edition covers pricing for an 126 mobile operators across 76 countries worldwide and it is constantly being updated as operators introduce new LTE services both mobile broadband and smartphone price plans.

The TCL Global LTE Pricing Tariff Tracker subscription service provides price information in an easy to use excel spreadsheet format which allows the user to simply compare and filter pricing information.

Detailed LTE product information per MNO include:

• LTE service launch date
• Name of LTE network vendor used
• Whether the service is aimed at the Business or Residential segment
• Whether the service is Post Pay or Pre Pay
• The main locations where the LTE service is available
• The theoretical maximum download speed provided
• The contract term
• The cost per plan (local currency, Euro and USD) inclusive and exclusive of tax
• The monthly data user allowance included
• The out of data user allowance cost
• Promotional pricing

All pricing is shown in local currency, in Euro or in USD and includes taxes and VAT and is sourced directly from the MNO. The product is available on a 1-year subscription basis.

For a sample, email us on [email protected]