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This is a rant post.
Quick recap
At the start of November, the ICT minister announced an Open Access Policy on SAFE, an end to Mauritius Telecom's exclusivity & cheap access to SAFE by other ISP's.
Following this OAP, MT decided to preemptively strike its competitors. They decreased their Internet prices while not being mandated by the government to do so. (Curiously, this decrease was announced by the ICT Minister).
I precise this is totally unrelated to the 16% to 24% price decrease written in the budget, to be applied in early 2011.
(Read the above sentence once again).
Which turned out to be as follows:
- ADSL Home 256K 3GB – Rs 499 to Rs 399
- ADSL Home 512K – Rs 848 to Rs 759
- ADSL Home 1M (n/a to public) – Rs 1549 to Rs 1353
- My.T 1M+TV – Rs 1699 to Rs 999
- My.T 2M+TV – Rs 2999 to Rs 1699
- My.T 4M+TV – Rs 2999
2 offers were scrapped - ADSL Home 1Mbps & My.T 512kbps (no TV - having only free channels).
ADSL 1M users could easily migrate to My.T 1M or 2M - because no one will keep paying Rs 1353 for something being offered at Rs 999. But for My.T 512K (no TV), there was to be neither a speed double nor a price decrease...
Pwned by Orange Mauritius
I'm an ADSL 128K (Rs 750+VAT = Rs 848) user since 2007. A My.T 256K (Rs 848) user since 2008. In 2009, when my 256K connection was doubled, old My.T users were given a choice - pay same price (Rs 848) for no new TV channels or pay Rs 999 for up to 15 channels (around 10 new channels). A 3-month trial was given for users to make up their minds. Most people were not interested in the new channels & they chose to keep the same price.
Back to present day, on the 1st December, like all Internet users, I was eagerly awaiting for my speed double. With the arrival of Eassy, I knew that a speed double was not far off & I was very excited to see my predictions come true.
By morning, when my speed still hadn't doubled, an idea cropped in my head - MT had mentioned nothing about 512K connections with no TV. "What if..." I shrugged it off thinking that maybe they'll take a few days to flick the double speed switch.
In the afternoon, as ominous rumours reached me, the dark side of Orange Mauritius started to reveal itself. & at night, checking previous comments on my blog, my gut disappeared as I discovered that the writing was already there since the day before, which I had chosen to completely ignore.
In disbelief, I realised that there would be no speed double for me. I have been screwed by Orange.
At first it was incomprehension, denial, followed by intense frustration, disgust, anger & finally a feeling hopelessness that still endures... Some may consider this as underhanded business practices, while for me that was daylight robbery.
Why did they do this?
Let's look again at the new price tier.
ADSL 512K - Rs 759
My.T 1M+TV - Rs 999
My.T 2M+TV - Rs 1699
My.T 4M+TV - Rs 2999
With Eassy, Mauritius Telecom now have excess bandwidth on their hands & they were looking at ways to cash on their investment. How to provide faster connections while keeping a huge profit margin?
The answer was devilishly simple enough – My.T. The latter being an Internet+TV+VOIP offer, MT can demand a much higher price for such a service (while knowing that 99% of users actually don’t want any TV channels). & how to get more users on My.T? Scrap all ADSL offers… resulting in what we’re currently witnessing as the mass exodus of ADSL users to My.T (conversion fees required mind you!). For ADSL 1M (already non-existent, cos only available to 512K users who had their speeds doubled last year), they practically forced everyone to My.T 1M by reducing the price from Rs 1549 to Rs 1353, while My.T 1M+TV is at Rs 999. Worthless by default.
Make no mistake, MT can provide 1Mbps & even 2Mbps ADSL, but they won’t do that because everyone will use cheaper ADSL then. If the 1M offer was still available, to fit in that price tier, it would be priced around Rs 850 (& the 2M at 1350) – making it extremely attractive to all users.
& how about My.T 512K (no TV). For a long time, these users have been a pain in the ass for MT – enjoying My.T (2Mbps local speed) while paying less & opting out of TV channels. & on the 1st of Dec, finally they’ve been able to axe these users. No speed double & neither a price decrease for them. What would the majority do? Yes, move to the very attractive 1M+TV offer, which is coincidentally much more expensive…
MT have no interest in making broadband available to most users. What they want is money. & they can go to any length - cheating & overselling their offers to be able to suck your blood.
What to do?
My.T 512K (no TV) users are long time Internet (broadband) subscribers & here’s how MT have decided to reward them. These users have 3 options:
- 1. Upgrade to My.T 1M+TV for Rs 999. As a promo, they’ll pay only Rs 848 for the first 3 months. For that they have to go to an MT shop & fill a modification form. Yes, in 2010, you have to go & fill a form. Why? Probably because of a revised contract with new terms & conditions…
- 2. Downgrade to ADSL Home 512K for Rs 759. For that, they’ll have to return their Livebox & they’ll get a Beetel modem with Wifi instead. No more 2Mbps local speed.
- 3. Keep the status quo. Keep your My.T 512K & still pay Rs 848. No price decrease, no speed double. Keep getting screwed.
There’s another category of subscribers to My.T 512K (no TV) – people who can’t receive the IPTV because they are so far away from their DSLAM that ADSL2 barely works. They can receive 2Mbps, but no more than that to sustain the IPTV which requires between 2-3Mbps (& here’s how we do know that ADSL 2Mbps is actually possible). One wonders why on earth such subscribers were deemed eligible for My.T when MT knew they couldn’t have TV… However, now MT won’t offer these deals because they can be sued for overselling.
For these subscribers (all of us actually), MT could have proposed 1Mbps/2Mbps ADSL offers, but unfortunately they are no charity organisation (they are a profitable business that reaps in Rs 1.5 billion in profits every year). Until these users have FTTC, they have two options – downgrade to ADSL 512K or keep paying the same price (Rs 848). Still getting screwed.
What will I do?
My line is eligible for all My.T offers. Do I want a 1Mbps connection? Yes. Do I really really need a 1Mbps connection? The answer is honestly… let’s find out.
My Internet usage can be divided into three categories:
- Browsing.
- Downloading.
- Streaming live matches.
Will 1Mbps offer me faster browsing speeds? Definitely. 512K may not be qualified as “broadband,” but the speed is fast enough for me. The wait time is acceptable. & with some content locally cached, I can get up to 2Mbps.
I download only 2 things – movies & Top Gear. Since I had 128K, downloading taught me one virtue – patience (downloading 100MB every 2 hours). With 512K, I can wait 8 hours to download a Top Gear episode. That’s not a problem for me.
MBC never show matches I want to watch, so my only option is to watch the online live streams. Even on my 512K, I can barely buffer 200Kbps streams. Only 175Kbps & 150Kbps crappy streams work. 1Mbps could solve this problem with slightly better streams (500Kbps?)… Still, I can live with text-only live updates, as I've been doing for the past 2 years.
So far, I don’t really need a 1Mbps connection.
Let’s see what’s being offered as value-added services. My.T 1M is an Internet+TV+VOIP offer.
Internet (My.T Surf) – 1Mbps will be fast & with Eassy, I’ve noticed that slowdowns are less frequent. The local infrastructure has slightly improved. & there’s no Fair Usage Policy. It wasn’t applied on the first place, so that's a moot point.
VOIP (My.T Talk) – I don’t use that.
TV (My.T Watch) – 18 channels, which the majority of subscribers choose to conveniently ignore.
News – CNN, CCTV F, NDTV Profit, Orange Sports Info.
Kids – Gulli, Boing, Boomerang.
Music – MCM Top, Hungama.
Films – France 2, TCM
Other – France O, France 5, Liberty TV, Fashion TV, Motors TV.
Already available on MBC DVB-T (redundant) - France 24, NDTV Good Times.
Is it worth an extra Rs 151? If that included the Bollywood bouquet (StarPlus, NDTV Imagine, StarOne, Imagine Showbiz, Headlines Today – priced at Rs 250), I could have considered it. But the channels really aren’t worth it, especially with no Sports channel. Plus the image quality is horrendous! As your local connection varies, the stream bandwidth decreases & it becomes pixelised. Fast-action scenes always have dropped frames.
Since I do not have any satellite TV subscription (they are way too expensive), I wouldn't know how the quality of the image compares. But I do know that their content is infinitely better than what's offered by My.T.
Video On Demand? Same thing. Horrible quality. I can download movies with much better quality (& not in French).
So, the value-added services for My.T are useless for me.
I bet at this point, someone will come along & say - "Dude, get a life. It's just Rs 151. Stop being so fussy!"
Well, it isn't. 2 years ago, I would agree, but not now.
For the past 3 years, I've been paying my Internet connection at around Rs 848, which means that total bill is usually below Rs 1000.
Should I upgrade to My.T, that would mean the bill would be a minimum of Rs 1100 per month. Unacceptable, given that the cost of living is increasing every day while our salaries is near stagnant. Price hike in vegetable oil, hike in plastic bags, hike in rice, increase in bus fares. With the 10% increase in electricity tariffs, that will cause a snowball effect increasing the price of every single commodity.
& now an increase in the price of Internet? That is the last straw.
So what I'm gonna do? Probably play the waiting game (for a further decrease?).
As I've mentioned before, there is to be a 16% to 24% decrease in the price of International Private Leased Circuit and Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network at the start of 2011 (could be anywhere between January 2011 & March 2011).
I do not know what this means, but most probably there will be a mandatory decrease in the price of Internet. & thus a decrease in the price of all Internet offers across all ISPs. However, will MT apply that decrease?
On the 1st of December 2010, with the speed double, that meant a 41% decrease for My.T 1M & 43% decrease for My.T 2M. But for ADSL 512K, it was only 10%. & 1Mbps ADSL was scrapped. See what they did there... A masterstroke.
With the forthcoming price decrease, MT would have been forced to lower the prices of all connections including ADSL 1M & My.T 512K (no TV). They moved fast & erased both of these offers, forcing all subscribers to My.T. & now if ever there’ll be a decrease, the only offer that is eligible is ADSL 512K.
My.T? “But we’ve already applied a massive 43% decrease, much more than the government mandated.”
Their evil scheme has succeeded. They’ve managed to keep their high profit margin. For me, MT’s strategy is clear – they will never decrease prices, only the speeds will double. & with ADSL out of the equation, subscribers are constrained to pay for services they never wanted on the first place.
One more thing
Another proof of the wickedness of Orange Mauritius.
The cat's out of the bag. As you all probably don't know, while most My.T logins are tethered to their DSLAM (they work in only one region), some logins work everywhere. & it's the login that defines the sync speed (international bandwidth) you get. Means you can use a 1Mbps login to get 1Mbps on a 512K connection. Except...
On Friday, I got this 1Mbps login. The only thing I did was test its speed. & then I logged out.
The next day, I tried it again.
So?
I’ll keep my My.T 512k at Rs 848 & wait to see what happens in January. If there’s no decrease, I’’ll downgrade to much slower ADSL 512K… It’s not only a question of money. Upgrading to My.T 1M+TV would mean victory for MT, a success for their vile ploy.
Mauritius Telecom wants to make money. Hence, that’s why they are canvassing me to pay more to get a price decrease (yeah, where’s the logic in that?). While all I want is an affordable Internet-only broadband connection. How hard can it be?
Rant over.
Related posts from other Mauritian bloggers:
- GeekScribes - The Deceit Of Orange Mauritius
- Yashvin - Myt 512 – Upgrade / Downgrade / Forget double speed!
- GeekScribes - Orange Mauritius Announces Price Cuts, Speed Boosts
- Avinash - The infamous YouTube spinner
- Island Crisis - New ADSL and MyT Internet Price in Mauritius 2010
- http://orangemauritiusfail.info/
Update:
Hogwash.