Triple-play bundles on cards for SA - 30 November 2007

In overseas markets like the UK and Europe, consumers can purchase bundled telephony, broadband connectivity and IPTV services that are delivered over the same physical connection by a single service provider – and the same will happen in SA.

This trend, referred to as triple-play, is being driven by technology advances that allow high volumes of data to be sent over a single wired or wireless connection, says Tim Courtenay, MD of the telecommunication division at ATIO.

At the same time, service providers that have operated traditionally in the separate areas of telephony, broadband and TV are now diversifying across all these services to broaden their revenue streams.

“They were reaching saturation in their own market and were threatened by competitors targeting their customer base with broader service offerings.”

In the UK, BT offers a package that includes an eight megabit per second broadband connection, IPTV, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and free access to its WiFi hotspots for ₤19 a month, which is about R266, says Courtenay.

UK television broadcaster Sky is bundling a two to eight megabits per second broadband connection, IPTV and a number of telephone minutes of ₤26 a month.

He says Virgin Media if offering broadband, telephony, IPTV and free mobile phone minutes for ₤40.

In SA, Telkom, Vodacom and MTN all come from a voice service background and are now offering broadband and moving into IPTV services, and Neotel is likely to follow suit.

He says MWEB, another Naspers group company has an extensive consumer customer base that subscribe to its Internet connectivity services. It offers broadband services and it is piloting the new MiMAX wireless broadband connectivity technology.

“It is easy for MWEB to take and deliver telephony services using WiMAX , and it has access to TV content through MultiChoice.”

Bundled triple-play services are expected to be available in SA over the next couple of years, although cost could be an issue.

Many consumers are paying about R450 for their satellite TV, R600 for mobile telephony and R400 for an ADSL line and internet connectivity, amounting to R1700 a month. Service providers will need to slash their prices to attract customers with their bundled triple-play offerings, says Courtenay.