Bundled offerings need innovation to fight price cutting

CHICAGO-Telecom vendors will need to offer unique wireless services to entice new subscribers-rather than simply bundling wireless service with other telecom offerings, according to a panel of speakers at a Digital Hollywood session during the pre-show conferences at NXTcomm.
Wireless is a “very unique” part of multi-play packages, and customers respond at different levels of interest depending on whether they are offered wireless as part of their bundle, according to Vince Vittore, senior analyst with the Yankee Group. He noted that cable operators, though still behind telcos as the preferred company through which customers want to buy a communications service bundle, are catching up, and he said he expects that within the next three to four years consumers will be equally comfortable buying a bundle from a cable company.
Customers who bundle are most interested in a single bill and a price discount on services, Vittore said-however, he noted, broadband customers tend to view bundling as a positive thing that moves them into a higher tier of service, but wireless customers remain skeptical.
“A lot of people don’t necessarily believe that they’re going to buy mobility just because it’s part of a package,” Vittore said. Wireless customers, he added, are much more concerned about issues such as network coverage and quality than whether the service is offered as part of a bundle.
Panelists urged the audience to explore applications, such as caller identification over the television, as ways to add value and differentiation to their services-and possibly as a way to justify price increases rather than continued discounts on bundled services. Other applications that are likely to be offered by service providers-either directly to consumers, or to companies who then can extend the offer to customers-include home health monitoring, home security monitoring applications and energy use monitoring.