As you probably know by now, Orange has announced a price cut on its ADSL packages, and a speed-doubling measure on its MyT packages. The discussions have been raging on for the past few days on various fronts, including Twitter and CarrotMadman6’s Article on the price cuts.

MyT users are probably rejoicing by now. ADSL users too maybe, but probably in a lesser measure. I’m an ADSL user. I’m definitely not rejoicing. I believe Orange has successfully performed corporate tricks on its users, and has come out with a profit, all while announcing the price cuts / speed boosts.

Let me begin with the more obvious of the ripoffs:

UPDATE REGARDING PRICES:

The prices of the various packages are as follows, and VAT is included:

MyT 1Mbps Unlimited + 21 TV channels = Rs. 999 / month

MyT 2Mbps Unlimited + 21 TV channels = Rs. 1699 / month

MyT 4Mbps Unlimited + 21 TV channels = Rs. 2999 / month

ADSL Home 256Kbps 3GB cap (+ Rs. 0.58 per additional MB) = Rs. 399 / month

ADSL Home Unlimited 512Kbps = Rs. 759 / month

ADSL Home Unlimited 1Mbps = Rs. 1353 / month *

* This package was never offered as subscription, only auto-upgrade for former ADSL 512Kbps users.

Notice something funny up there? Discrimination I say! ADSL 1Mbps is priced Rs. 1353 after price cut. MyT 1Mbps + 21 TV channels is at Rs. 999! That’s a Rs. 354 difference for the same speed! If you ever doubted that Orange wants to migrate ADSL Home users to MyT, I think the difference in price clears away any doubts…

So my personal advice to all current ADSL 1Mbps users: Move to 1Mbps MyT, and save Rs. 354. I cannot guarantee for the quality of MyT over ADSL, but this will save you money, plus you get to watch some TV if you wish. Do the migration now, while the promotion last (Free installation, no migration fee). The promotion ends on 10^th January from what I heard.

MyT – No  TV users option get neither speed boost, nor price cut

A totally unfair and unjustified measure. Can anybody provide a logical explanation about why those users are not given the speed boost? I certainly can. Orange wants those “prehistoric” MyT users to move to the newer MyT + TV option, which you could have guessed, costs more.

So if you have MyT 512 Kbps (No TV) and wish to have the speed boost applied, you’d need to move to the current MyT+TV 1Mbps option, which costs Rs. 150 more. There you have it, the first way a profit can be made. Users, driven by want at seeing others downloading faster than them, will prefer to take the Rs. 150 added option.

ADSL users get no speed boost

Previously, I had ADSL Home 512 Kbps, which got upgraded to ADSL Home 1Mbps automatically last year. Very nice. I was very happy. Then. This year, I was impatiently awaiting the speed boost. It never came.

Newspapers did not announce this straight-out. They just did not mention the fact that ADSL users would get no speed boost, without any valid reason. By reading comments on TheMediaGuru, I learnt that apparently, ADSL would get no speed boost because the technology doesn’t support speeds beyond 1.5 Mbps.

False, according to this Wikipedia article. The theoretical limit is 8Mbps. Maybe the 1Mbps could have been boosted to 2Mbps then? Even if not 8Mbps, at least 2Mbps should be supported quite fine, no?

The question that follows was also raised: How come ADSL Home can’t support 2Mbps, but ADSL Business 2Mbps is offered as a package?

What Orange Wants

My opinion: Orange wants to turn its ADSL home users and the MyT No-TV users into MyT+TV users, resulting in less services to manage.

Since ADSL home users get no boost, they’ll want to move to MyT. And in doing this, incur additional monthly fees + installation fees (which are Rs. 0 at the moment, due to a bonus. Lasts till 10th Jan 2011 or so).

What matters is that Orange will effectively convert (some) ADSL users to MyT+TV at a profit.

Worst is that some MyT users are not eligible for the TV services due to the quality of their lines, possibly due to their distance from the nearest Telecom exchange. The thing is, these users are paying for a service which they cannot access. There is no price reduction if you don’t take the TV option of MyT. Why? Because it’s not possible now to take MyT without TV.

What Users Want

Both price cut + speed boost. We are greedy.

Most MyT users seem to be uninterested with the TV offer (according to my own mini-survey). Would you want IPTV when you already have satellite TV?

Maybe the TV offer interests casual Internet users who see it as a bonus, or maybe those who are not satellite TV subscribers. Not a lot of them nowadays, considering the things MBC is forcing upon us.

What heavy Internet users would want is a dedicated, high-speed, low-cost connection. We want MyT No-TV option to be re-instated.

If you take MyT but not the TV option, you will pay a lesser fee, say Rs. 300 less per month. That would make MyT’s monthly fee cheaper than my actual ADSL (internet-only) connection.

Such an option doesn’t exist yet: there is no high-speed (above 512 Kbps) Internet-only offer in Mauritius, which is kind of lame. The best you can have is 512K ADSL Home. Slowish nowadays, in times when streaming High Dimension Definition content is possible abroad.

So we gain ADSL 2/2+ technology, high-speed at an affordable cost, all while paying for services we use.

If the monthly price grid was as follows, I’d be a happy guy:

• MyT 256 Kbps → Rs. 250 (This will please users with low salary. Decent speed at a decent cost.)
• MyT 512 Kbps → Rs. 500 (What most users would be interested in. Good speed at a low-enough cost.)
• MyT 1 Mbps → Rs. 1000 (An upper-medium user’s choice.)
• MyT 2 Mbps → Rs. 1500 (Want more speed? Go for that one)
• MyT 4 Mbps → Rs. 2300 (“High-end” package)

And if you want MyT + TV option, add Rs. 300 to the above prices.

Wouldn’t that be satisfactory?

The Compromise

I may have entered an utopian dream there. The price grid I suggested might be infeasible. Want a mitigation solution? Offer existing ADSL users to move to MyT, while taking in consideration the speed doubling, allowing the users to maintain their current monthly rate.

So if I take myself as example, I’d be switching from ADSL 1Mbps to MyT 2Mbps, but priced at the rate of ADSL 1Mbps. Another ADSL Home 512K user would be moved to MyT 1Mbps while paying the ADSL Home 512K rate.

That would probably satisfy ADSL users who didn’t get the boost, all while satisfying Orange’s requirement to move as many users away from ADSL Home as possible, if that’s what they want.

Remember, a speed boost is an indirect price-cut. You are having access to a service which was costing more previously. So those ranting that they’d prefer a price-cut over a speed-boost, it’s the same thing. Although, I kind of understand the need for a “very low-cost” connection solution.

So let’s hear it now: your views on the issue. I doubt that you have nothing to say, so the comments section below is open for you to voice your opinions.