Uncapped BIS in SA on life support?

News recently emerged that MTN is planning to replace its unlimited BIS product with a capped BlackBerry Advanced product on 1 March 2013. Vodacom and Cell C may well be planning the same thing.

BlackBerry 10 is set to be launched on 1 March 2013, and BIS as we know it will not exist on the new BlackBerry operating system (OS).

Industry feedback suggests that unlimited, flat rated Internet access will also not exist with BlackBerry 10. This creates the conundrum of the older BlackBerry OSs, which support uncapped BIS, offering better value than the new products.

To balance things out and make BlackBerry 10 more attractive, operators may start to cap the existing BIS plans from 1 March.

Another advantage of a capped BIS service is to contain the sky-rocketing data usage on the platform, and to benefit financially from higher BlackBerry data usage.

Over the last few years the average BIS usage increased from 20MB to 200MB, increasing costs without an increase in revenue per user. This is bad news for any operator.

Average Vodacom BIS data usage

MTN testing the waters

MTN seems to be the first to test the waters. An MTN document indicated that the operator is planning to do away with its uncapped BIS service, and replace it on 1 March 2013 with a capped “BlackBerry Advance” service with a 200MB monthly limit.

This is not the first time MTN planned to place a cap on its BIS offering. In mid-2012 there was a similar document with a planned BIS cap of 100MB, but it looked like the operator got cold feet after a backlash from consumers.

It should be noted that MTN has not yet officially confirmed their new BlackBerry Advanced plans.

“MTN will issue an official statement to media should there be any changes to BlackBerry pricing,” a company spokesperson said.

MTN BlackBerry tiered plans leaked stucture

Unlimited BIS here to stay (at least from 8ta)

Not all operators are planning to do away with unlimited BIS just yet.

• 8ta said that it will continue to offer unlimited data BIS packages after 1 March 2013 (when BlackBerry 10 is launched).

Vodacom and Cell C mum on unlimited BIS after 1 March 2013

Vodacom and Cell C do not seem to have made up their minds yet on what to do with the current unlimited BIS service.

• Cell C said it cannot comment on the availability of uncapped BIS after 1 March 2013
• Vodacom said that product information on their new Blackberry products (hence after 1 March 2013) is not available at this stage

It may well be that Cell C and Vodacom are following the feedback from MTN’s plans to cap its high end BIS service, and use this as guidance for their decisions.

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