4G LTE plans may come in a wide variety of packages and pricing, but what Tariff Consultancy Limited(TCL), a London-based international telecoms tariff consultancy and research organization found in its recent research for its TCL Global LTE Pricing Tariff Tracker subscription service is that rather than differentiating their service plans by speeds or the traditional voice and SMS units, mobile network operators(MNOs) are using extended bundling strategies to make their offers stand out in the market place. A small number of MNOs are still putting a price tag for speeds offered on the 4G LTE connection, but overall, the market is seeing major players partnering with a wide variety of content and application providers to throw in a host of added services on their 4G LTE service bundles.
In its report, TCL noted that to maintain a premium price point, MNOs are including services such as unlimited night surfing, WiFi, storage, mobile insurance, international calls, SMS or voice to selected countries/regions (Virgin Mobile just unveiled such offer on its pre-paid 4G LTE plans this week), international roaming, calls, additional sharing of data & calls (between family members), music streaming services (T-Mobile's Music Freedom a perfect example of this), TV or movie services (for example. HBO Mobile), device bundling, preferential notification of new product launches and loyalty scheme membership (including discounts for purchases & airline VIP programmes).
This bundling strategy marks MNOs' growing presence into the digital services segment, with major players kickstarting the digital services gameplan by onboarding major content brands and combining these with their own white-labelled services and other add-on offers including cloud storage and mobile payments. As the adoption of digital lifestyle picks up, MNOs will see a strong shift in how customer perceive the operators' brand - where they will be seen not just as providers of connectivity and enablers of communication, but as the providers of integrated digital lifestyle services and solutions that cover a wide range of infotainment, m-commerce and mobile banking services as well as the connected car, smart home and m-health services.
