Although most large telecoms carriers offer bundled or multi-play packages, take-up has been limited in the Caribbean. Here we discuss four reasons why.

 

At a recent talk in Barbados, in which he was discussing the digital society as the next step in the Caribbean, President of Cable & Wireless’ Caribbean operations, Garry Sinclair, noted that although his firm is focussed on offering bundle packages, take-up has been limited:

We are definitely focused on creating more and more bundled propositions and delivering those propositions to customers. But the fact that half of our customers are still on single play means that we have not migrated as many of them from their single play propositions to double and triple play.

(Source:  Nation News)

Whilst generally we might appreciate that securing a bundled package, regardless of the field, can be better value for money, in practice, there can be broad range of reasons why customers do not gravitate to those options. Below, we highlight four.

1.Most customers prefer prepaid services

If we have a choice, the majority of telecoms customers in the Caribbean prefer to be prepaid subscribers. We pay in advance for the service we need, which helps us to better manage our budget, and not be caught out by a prohibitively high bill we cannot afford to settle. Of the telecoms services available, carriers in the region have only offered those delivered on mobile/cellular devices, such as telephone and broadband Internet, as prepaid services. Those typically delivered to a household or premises, such as fixed-line telephony and subscriber television, traditionally have been postpaid services.

Currently, there may not necessarily be any serious technical barrier to telcos being able to offer fixed-line telephony and subscriber television as prepaid services. Yes, some reconfiguration of the infrastructure and operations to support prepaid billing may be necessary, but such adjustments could make multi-play bundles more attractive to budget-sensitive customers.

2.  Multi-play packages can be expensive

Question: why don’t all of us shop at bulk-buy stores? Although there might be several answers, the most common might be the fact that although you benefit from volume and economies of scale, invariably your final bill is considerably more than at a traditional supermarket. Similar reasons can apply to multi-play packages.

Frequently, the multi-play rates payable tend to be higher that many customers are comfortable with. However, when a customer totals all of their separate receipts for a month (e.g. Internet and subscriber television) they might be actually paying as much, or even more, than for a multi-play package, which also includes fixed-line telephony service.

3.  Services offered by a telco of varying quality

With the eroding competition in the region, this point may not be as evident as it had been in the past. However, essentially, the quality of the services offered by many of the telecoms carriers across the region was uneven. Some are better at subscriber television than others; some mobile/cellular carriers offer better coverage in particular areas than others. As a result, customers may be more inclined to cherry-pick their services, based on the quality of the actual service being offered by specific telecoms carriers.

4.  The specifics of the bundle do not meet our needs

Finally, it may not be surprising that typically, multi-play bundles are designed for the more upwardly mobile/affluent segments of our population. Unfortunately, those segments are small, but are most likely lucrative. However if, according to Garry Sinclair, carriers wish to increase take-up of multi-play packages, the constituents of those bundles – to make them more appropriate to the needs (and price points) of other demographics – may need to be adjusted.

 

Image credit:  poppet with a camera (flickr)

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