Italian H3G signs up 140 000 3G customers in 20 days — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Customer satisfaction is high} Italian H3G signs up 140 000 3G customers in 20 days

7 Apr 2003 at 16:41 GMT Timo Poropudas

Hutchison Whampoa commercially launched its new 3G network in Italy on 10 March, known as H3G. In only 20 days since the service was launched in the country, according to the H3G spokesman, the operator has managed to register 140,000 subscribers who have already booked 3G's services. Out of those 140,000, a total of 40,000 subscribers have been called to visit the distribution points to sign their contracts and another 40,000 subscribers have already signed contracts. Of those who have already signed the agreement with H3G, approximately 20,000 are active subscribers of the 3G services. The Italian subsidiary of the Asian operator has 140,000 points of sale across the country. Prior to this launch Hutchison ordered from NEC and Motorola the shipment of 20,000 handsets to Milan, where the operator first started the operations of H3G. A spokesman from H3G Italy reported to EMC that as at 1 April 2003 the company is ordering between 3,000 and 4,000 handsets per day from the two vendors. The operator initially launched services with flat rate tariff plans, known as 'Top 3 Executive' and 'Top 3 Privilege'. Both of these plans require a monthly payment of EUR 85 and EUR 140, respectively, according to market research company EMC. With these amounts the subscribers will receive:
- 10 hours per week of national calls to fixed lines,
- 10 weekly hours of national conference calls to 3 subscribers or another mobile operator,
- 150 weekly SMS to any national or international mobile number,
- 50 weekly MMS to any national or international mobile number,
- 100 weekly e-mails to any e-mail address,
- 1,000 items of multimedia content per week on all content from 3's mobile website. The main difference between the two tariff plans is in the type of handsets because Top 3 Privilege will allow customers to acquire the NEC e606 UMTS handset, with the possibility of replacing it once a year from a list of 3's handsets, while with Top 3 Executive customers can acquire the Motorola A830 (EUR 570) or the NEC e606 (EUR 780). On the 31 March 2003 Hutchison announced the launching of two new tariff plans, known as '3 CINQUANTA' (3 Fifty) and '3 PER TRE' (3 times three). '3 Cinquanta' is a prepaid, top-up tariff plan available with the NEC e606 video phone handset and a USIM for the price of EUR 810. This tariff plan includes 30 minutes of traffic. The '3 PER TRE' subscription is available to subscribers for a monthly fee of EUR 6.00, prior the payment of EUR 780 for the NEC e606 video phone handset. According to the spokesman from H3G Italy, the most successful tariff plan is the 'Top 3 Privilege', chosen by about 70% of the operator's current subscriber base, and the most successful service is the video-call, at least for the time being. The network is still in its early days and EMC has discovered that in some cases it is getting overloaded because of the number of customers trying to download videos and/or the amount of subscribers trying to reach the operator's customer services. The operator has reported that its network currently is experiencing difficulties with connections in some cases and that it is aware of the necessity for a service adjustment in accordance with market demand. However, after tracking the first impressions of 3's customers, what is notable is the level of satisfaction. One of the explanations is the high-speed modem incorporated in the handsets offered by 3. On average, the data transmission over a UMTS network is 10 times faster than over a GPRS network. H3G has reported that it aims to surpass the results of NTT DoCoMo during its first six months of commercial service in the Japanese market. H3G Italy has 2,600 base stations. Ericsson has built 45% of them and the remainder was built as the result of the agreement signed in March 2001 with Siemens-NEC. H3G recognizes that with the current deployment of its base stations, it should cover 40% of the Italian population, taking into account difficulties with some of the Italian tourist areas, such as Venice and Trieste. According to EMC, H3G shareholders include Italian and international players in telecommunications, Internet and new media, publishing and banking. Hutchison Whampoa is the largest shareholder with 88.2% of the corporate capital. The other shareholders are CIR with 1.8%, S. Paolo Imi with 5.6%, BMI with 2.3%, HDP with 0.6%, and finally, Tiscali, with 0.4%.