SIIT 2009: innovating offers for mobiles and Internet

Technical breakthroughs that had to be presented during the SIIT’s 2nd edition are yet to be seen. The phone line operator Mada Mobile is still expecting for an administrative authorization before unfolding its CDMA 2 based technology. The fourth actor in this highly competitive sector is supposed to put forth something new as for voice and data transmission. 

For the time being, Madagascar’s phone line operators are continuously competing with new offers adapted to every market level. Telma is proposing a single price for all operators. Consumers would necessarily not enjoy any significant price fall in it, but would certainly benefit from the removal of price hurdles, judged rather unfavourable to communication. 

Operator Zain is betting on the offered possibility to alter the consumer’s price grid according to his immediate need. About twenty price grids are being proposed either for international calls, text messaging or late evening calls… Orange Madagascar is striving to have the edge on its competitors by democratizing the link phone line – Internet, making data its marketing hardcore. This strategy is actually part of the soon upcoming exploitation of high speed network brought by the cable Lion. 

Successfully installed as planned in June 2009, the connection joining Toamasina and the island of La Reunion is on standstill, commercially speaking. Orange Madagascar complained about the lack of legislation in the sector whereas Telma’s monopoly, granted at the time of its privatization, is already over. The minister for Telecommunication and new technologies is trying to reassure by announcing that the new legal text would very soon be ready. Orange ought to be able to exploit the high speed by the end of the year 2009. 

What about the use of the high speed network through the cable Lion by the other operators? Will Orange be allowed to build a second fibber optic link between Antananarivo and Toamasina where the Point of Presence is installed? The opening of the network to the different operators is an issue well missed by the national TIC policy. Shall consumers still have to pay the costs of network connections? In any case, an important communication price drop is expected thanks to the upcoming very high speed internet. The impact on phone line costs and services are, however, still quite confused. 

The Premiere Ligne agency, the promoter of the event, had to insist to get smaller operators on board during the SIIT 2009. TIC product traders hit by depredations back in January have been invited. Business has resumed but the situation has not completely recovered. The plummeting spending power and the weakness of the national currency are not favourable to a genuine bounce back. However, the TIC products are not yet affected either by inflation or by the backlashes of the crisis.