Hard struggle for officials: mobile operators go to 70 percent discounts, surprising the market

The abolition of "mobile slavery" exacerbated the struggle between the largest communication operators for users - including state ones. According to Fontanka.Ru , from the summer of 2014, about 7.3 thousand Smolny officials will begin to serve MTS for the first time, who reduced the price of 77%to win in the corresponding order. In the Federation Council, the situation is the opposite - its members from the New Year are transferred from MTS to Megaphone. Some observers believe that legislative innovations have nothing to do with it - the issue of lobbying.

Recall that the amendments to the Law "On Communications" President Vladimir Putin signed at the end of November. The idea of ​​changes is to give subscribers the opportunity to save their mobile number when changing the operator. Such an opportunity among subscribers appeared on December 1. And operators, who until March 1, 2014 will not ensure the transition of their customers to other communication operators will be forced to serve them for free.

The possibility of maintaining the number has exacerbated the relationship between mobile operators. And this affected this not only the accusations of the unwillingness to "let go" of the subscriber, which the Big Three sends to the Ministry of Communications against each other. Serious changes have occurred in the field of state corporate communications. So, MTS with a huge decrease (from 37.5 million to 8.5 million rubles) won the order of the St. Petersburg government for servicing Smolny officials in the second half of 2014. The first half of the year received Megafon, who served representatives of the city administration for many years.

Now MTS will have to issue at least 7.3 thousand SIM cards to employees of the Smolny Committee, district administrations, state institutions, agencies, and inspections in the second half of 2014. In this case, each group of employees should be connected to a separate tariff. The Packet of Services "Heads" (total such chiefs 311) involves unlimited calls within the network, 3 thousand free minutes a month for calls to city numbers and beyond the mobile network (if this indicator exceeds this indicator, the official will have to pay 1.27 rubles in a minute), an unlimited number of SMS and MMS.

Under the terms of the contract, monthly maintenance of 311 managers will cost the budget of 474 thousand rubles, or 1.5 thousand per each. At the same time, a package similar in parameters, according to the MTS website, costs a little more - 1.8 thousand rubles. It turns out that the tariff offered to customers is cheaper than MTS itself offers subscribers. And with a 77% reduction in the cost of the payback of such cooperation, the Fontanka notes.

The struggle for state corporate clients, as it turned out, unfolded far not only in Smolny. Members of the Federation Council, which have still been served by MTS, have been switching to MegaFon since January 2014. The corresponding order for the provision of services before the end of the next year was won by Megafon, offering to carry out work for 21.8 million rubles (at the initial price of 29 million rubles). The losers became MTS and Vimpelcom ("Beeline").

Win at all costs

The reduction in the price with which MTS came to Smolny shows that the company's goal was not to earn money, and at all costs to enter the new market. “A decrease from 37.5 to 8.5 million rubles is either a loss or zero. There are no miracles. The question is whether MTS in St. Petersburg can offer their services to other state institutions. If the reduction is as strong, about the profitability of such an access to the market,” said Denis Kuskov, general director of the Telecomdail agency.

The CEO of the Rustelcom analytical agency Yuri Bryukvin believes that legislative innovations have nothing to do with it. “This is due to the lobbying capabilities of the operators,” he believes. Smolny, for example, had and has a technical opportunity to organize the forwarding of the numbers of their employees so that they do not feel the transition to another operator, so the legislative subtleties do not affect this situation, Brukkin is sure.