From Teltarif today, March 25, 2006

simyo: Vorl?ufig Ende der Fahnenstange bei Discount-Preisen

Bereits eine Million Discount-Kunden in Deutschland 25.03.2006
15:01

Das Telefonieren mit dem Handy wird nach Einsch?tzung des Discount-Anbieters simyo so schnell nicht mehr billiger.

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"According to MVNO discounter SIMYO (E+) tarifs for mobile phones in Germany will not be rapidly declining any time soon................."

I think this can be seen in connection with another report about the failure of Lidl to enter the market reported & discussed earlier on this forum.

Teltarif has recently quoted the T-MO boss as stating that mobile prices would be falling. They have apparently introduced some new postpaid tarifs that are a bit less pricey. I don't see a contradiction as T-Mo is NOT a discounter and they need to throw out a bone or two to retain their clients. In their PREPAID offers they SEEM to have a nasty way of thowing the bone (NON-STOP and 5 e-cents network internal rates) and then letting those rates expire. I suspect that was a tactic to keep their subscriber #s up. I think the similar offer from Voda PREPAID will also expire soon.

There has been some discussion today on Teltarif about some folks dumping their current providers and switching to SIMYO for substantial savings. APPARENTLY, the discounters have not yet hurt the biggies too much.

Stan

I don't see the big boys jittery just yet. Perhaps this will change when the next round of subscriber numbers are issued. On the other hand, how much lower would the prices go? I seriously doubt we'll see any MVNO go lower than 5 cents. After all, E-Plus could easily raise the fees that the MVNOs pay to use their network which would make it less likely that the prices will go any lower.

In the last days, at the Prepaid Mobile conference in Prague, it was very interesting to listen to a director of Yesss MVNO in Austria. He said that in Germany the MVNOs like Simyo have not a great success due to the internet-based selling and that is their big limit, and good advantage for Aldi and Tchibo which have of course tons of selling points throughout Germany. He said also that in his opinion Aldi has the cheapest rates and no one will go even lower with new offers, so it confirms what Teltarif says, i.e. that in Germany we have reached (almost) the bottom for low-cost tariffs, at least for now and with the actual termination costs.

I think your observations are absolutely correct.

Aldi has the lowest prepaid rates (15 cents all outbound, 5 cents internal) AND the distribution chain. Of course, E+ coverage is not as good as the D-networks, so there is some disadvantage. BUT (big but, of course) if Aldi can take customers and calls from the biggies, rates there might come down. SIMYO etc run a close second, but as you noted, distribution is the problem.

My problem, and probably not unlike many others, is that I have invested in 2 D1 SIMs and have refills in reserve. The numbers don't mean anything to me, but I would imagine others who have had their #s for some time, would NOT like to switch numbers. Of course, they could always put a greeting on their voicemail box informing callers of the new #.

I don't think there is much hope for rates LOWER than Aldi, but we can hope that the D-network providers will lower some rates -- either network internal where on D-1 they are 39 cents per minute (main time) and 19 cents (off peak). Likewise, rates to landlines and other mobiles could be lowered from 39 cents. At least that is my hope. My XtraOne rates to other mobiles and landlines is 79 cents weekdays. Simply absurd, I would say.

I am debating whether of not to buy some Aldi cards when we go there in summer.

Thanks for all,

Stan

E-Plus' coverage is definitely better than O2 since unlike O2, E-Plus doesn't need to roam on another provider in order to supplement their own native coverage. As for ALDI having the lowest price, I would say that this will remain so for now but I certainly expect Lidl to offer a prepaid MVNO deal at the same price.