kaspaas
15-02-2005, 08:47 AM
Hi,
One of the reasons for the R600 / 3GByte kind of offerings by all in the so-called "broadband" market is simply that current demand is strong enough at that price to grow as fast as the moneymakers want to grow the market.
Once the market is saturated at these levels, the "product war" (pricing/features) will start.
I guess it will be very similar to the cellphone market.
Initially a very few options.
Then came the same packages with a few more bells. Then they added the whistles - but the prices did not drop.
As new users became a scarce commodity, "specials" became "more special" and new packages where introduced.
The latest salvo was from Vodacom which declared war in the mobile data market. Actually the niche for the "little mobile bandwidth users".
I believe the pricing in the "narrow broadband" market will follow the same pattern. The big Q is: What is the size of the market at current product/pricing levels, and when will it start to get saturated?
Until the market is saturated, the service providers are free to milk the market - they will be growing according to preset targets.
One of the reasons for the R600 / 3GByte kind of offerings by all in the so-called "broadband" market is simply that current demand is strong enough at that price to grow as fast as the moneymakers want to grow the market.
Once the market is saturated at these levels, the "product war" (pricing/features) will start.
I guess it will be very similar to the cellphone market.
Initially a very few options.
Then came the same packages with a few more bells. Then they added the whistles - but the prices did not drop.
As new users became a scarce commodity, "specials" became "more special" and new packages where introduced.
The latest salvo was from Vodacom which declared war in the mobile data market. Actually the niche for the "little mobile bandwidth users".
I believe the pricing in the "narrow broadband" market will follow the same pattern. The big Q is: What is the size of the market at current product/pricing levels, and when will it start to get saturated?
Until the market is saturated, the service providers are free to milk the market - they will be growing according to preset targets.