The rise in prices not only hits the Argentines when they have to buy products of first necessity, relieved by the INDEC in the so-called "basic basket" which, by the way, already accumulates an increase of 8.1% in the year exceeding even inflation.
It also leaves its mark on the "technological basket" - made up of the installments of pay TV, Internet and telephone subscriptions paid by a typical family per month - as can be seen from a survey of iProUP.
For the time being, the item Communications increased 8.5% in the first months of 2018 (last measurement of the INDEC) and is the third category with the highest increases behind public services and food.
In this way, a home composed of two adults and two children must pay a whopping $ 4,000 and up to $ 5,000 per month to access these services, depending on the speed and the desired service combo.
The invoice shown below shows what a "just" type family must pay to access cable and Wi-Fi. That is to say:
- Not counting the cost of fixed or mobile telephony, which can add to the $ 3,500 described (image) another $ 2,000 more for the four people (4 lines of 2 Giga of $ 530 each)
- To the above ($ 5,500) you must add the fixed line, whose monthly amount is around $ 500
But, in addition to being more expensive, quality is far from being first class. According to Consumer Protection, the sector led the ranking of claims in Argentina, with 32,131 records last year.
The most questioned is still Telecentro (8,140), a company that leads the protest map by a wide margin.
The rest of the companies have a similar number and less than half that figure: Telefónica Móviles (3,148), Cablevisión (3,053), Telefónica (3,034), Telecom Personal (2,832), Telecom Argentina (2,741), Fibertel (2,324). , Arnet (2,010) and Speedy (1,445).
"90% of those who want to cancel a service charge them at least one more month, this is one of the biggest complaints, the other is the lack of compensation for service cuts", says Sandra González, of the Association of Defense of Consumers and Users of Argentina (ADECUA).
After the Cablevisión-Telecom merger and the unification of Telefónica's products within the Movistar brand, several companies have integrated their services and changed their names, so the future claims map will show variations.
To this we must add the price war: almost all users receive calls at all times from call centers to propose packages, discounts and promos that, incidentally, are not always met after the user has accepted a change in the agreed modality.
For new customers, the combos are around $ 4,000 per month adding pay TV, Internet and telephony for four people. However, users who have already paid for certain services end up paying almost double.
Paradoxically, the "faithful" have to lose: they must disburse more and more and do not receive the promos of "welcome": only when they call to ask for a discharge from the service, only then do they tempt them with surprising rebates.
The telco basket
The consumption of cable comes in descending descent, more and more are those that do without this service. The global trend includes the so-called cord cutting, that is, those who cancel their subscriptions and migrate to Netflix or similar benefits. Also millennials who avoid subscribing to cable.
In Argentina, there is still a penetration of 78% of pay TV, against 51% of Internet connectivity services, according to the consultancy BB-Business Bureau. That is, 11 million subscribers to the cable and more than 7 million to the network.
"The competition is overheating," says Enrique Carrier, director of Carrier y Asociados, to iProUP. He adds: "You have services like Movistar Play, where there is Internet via fiber and Movistar TV, in the same situation Cablevision-Flow, which will soon offer quadruple play."
If they do not change, he says, the telcos will lose attractiveness in young segments, since "there is a very large gap between the list price and what they finally offer," he adds.
The difference from now on, according to Carrier, is the possibility that telephones have to offer television and the requirement to invest in fiber optics.
"In the case of Claro, since they do not have a fixed network, they start from scratch, Telefónica has to develop ADSL and its fiber in parallel, as did Cablevisión and Arnet, all of which changed their names due to the loss of prestige that this technology has," the specialist points out.
Carrier illustrates the route of the offers for home plans with the strategy of the traditional oriental board game GO: instead of going directly to your rival, it is surrounded in geographical areas where the competition is not so strong.
Telephone
The Spanish capital holding company now has 19 million mobile telephony customers, 54,000 from Movistar TV and 3.7 million from fixed telephony. In response to the demand for flexible plans has just presented Movistar Play, a cross-platform application for users who only want to pay for what they consume.
The proposal for this type of standalone is a pack of $ 260 per month for 13 air channels and cable plus HBO. It is available to company customers and it is not necessary to be subscribed to a cable operator.
The other Internet proposal of the firm is Movistar TV, a service of 120 HD signals available in the south of the City of Buenos Aires and the suburbs.
For their part, their cell phone plans include calls at no extra cost to any operator, SMS and WhatsApp bonus, telephony at a local price to some Latin American countries and access to the brand new Movistar Play service. All these products are offered with promotional discounts of between 40% and 50% during the first 12 months.
In this way, the total of the "basket telco", integrated by TV, home Internet of 100 MB, fixed telephony and four lines of cellular of 3 GB, give a total of almost $ 4.000 monthly if the discount is considered.
Claro
The local subsidiary of América Móvil has 21 million cell phone service customers throughout the country. He is a newcomer to fiber optic deployment and his plans are very limited in coverage.
She is developing content through Claro Video, Claro Música and her Claro Club benefits program. More recent is his proposal of "combos" to access several combined features.
Although it is one of the most economical options, the geographic availability of these services is still incipient, beyond their established position as cell phone operator.
The coverage in this case includes some games of Greater Buenos Aires (Morón, 3 de Febrero, Vicente López, Hurlingham, Berazategui, Lanús and San Martín); Salta Capital, Tucumán (San Miguel de Tucumán and Yerba Buena), Córdoba Capital and San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca.
In this case, the "technological basket" -composed by Internet of 100 MB, TV and a fixed line, reaches $ 1,500. Adding four cell phone lines with 2GB ($ 530 each) rises to almost $ 3,800.
Telecom
Since its merger with Cablevisión, it has been transforming into a giant. It has just presented a combined offer that varies according to each zone, but that presents a significant bonus of up to 45% for 12 months.
Is that they have a captive market of more than 3.4 million subscribers in Fibertel, more than 4.1 million in broadband and 18.6 million in mobile telephony. They also decided to gradually change their name.
"We integrated the Arnet brand into the Fibertel family, under the name Fibertel Lite for products up to 20 megabytes and Fibertel for those up to 100 megabytes, with the aim that our customers can identify themselves under the same brand of Internet access service. ", they assure iProUP from the company.
Cablevisión, for the attentive reader, no longer uses that brand for its cable proposal, but promotes Flow. Will they integrate all the services in a single invoice? They are working on them, they say from the company.
Now, the internet products are:
- FlowBox, which includes the decoder and free access to the app.
- Fibertel Lite, Arnet's successor with a download speed of up to 20 megabytes.
On the Personnel site, the company highlights its 45% discount for 12 months, which includes Fibertel, Personal, Flow and landline. A whole quad play.
In this case, the "telco basket", made up of 100 MB internet plus cable TV and a fixed line, reaches $ 2,561 with the discount. Adding four cell phone lines with 2GB (at $ 580 each), it raises to about $ 5,000.
The three operators are sparking to see who arrives with the best customer promotion, at a time when Argentines are seeing how to cut their expenses to face an inflation that seems not to stop its march.
In the coming months they promise to offer all their arsenal to continue adding subscribers, with the strategy set to lower the price of the products of their "basket telco" and find the opportunity within the crisis: stealing customers from the competition.
