Phone buyers wearing cost of deal

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Phone buyers wearing cost of deal

old3eyes

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#72854 3-Dec-2010 13:11

FYI.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4417844/Phone-buyers-wearing-cost-of-deal/

"United States-based Brightstar Corporation has been accused of making excessive profits from a contract under which it supplies most of the mobile phones for Telecom's XT network."

The last paragraph was interesting.

"Sydney-based IDC analyst Mark Novosel said New Zealanders were being charged higher-than-average prices for mobiles, compared with other countries, but that there was not much difference between Telecom and Vodafone's pricing."

So who's making the big profit from Vodafones sales??

Regards,

Old3eyes

keewee01

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#412514 3-Dec-2010 14:22

Those profits are obscene!!! Maybe Telstra, Telecom and couple of other telcos should join together and see if that helps them get better access to phones and pricing.... although what will probably end up happening is that company will make even larger profits and we'll still all suffer... unless we're shareholders in the telcos!

matisyahu

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#412520 3-Dec-2010 14:54

old3eyes: FYI.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4417844/Phone-buyers-wearing-cost-of-deal/

"United States-based Brightstar Corporation has been accused of making excessive profits from a contract under which it supplies most of the mobile phones for Telecom's XT network."

The last paragraph was interesting.

"Sydney-based IDC analyst Mark Novosel said New Zealanders were being charged higher-than-average prices for mobiles, compared with other countries, but that there was not much difference between Telecom and Vodafone's pricing."

So who's making the big profit from Vodafones sales??

Why the heck aren't they buying the phones directly off the manufacturer? I just had a look at what Brightstar Corporation do - getting stuff from point (A) to point (B). Nice to see that Telecom is paying through the nose for something a middle manager should be able to do.

Give me $45,000 a year, a phone and a cat for companionship and I certainly wouldn't be charging 30% profit margins.

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

NonprayingMantis

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#412525 3-Dec-2010 15:01

kawaii:
old3eyes: FYI.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4417844/Phone-buyers-wearing-cost-of-deal/

"United States-based Brightstar Corporation has been accused of making excessive profits from a contract under which it supplies most of the mobile phones for Telecom's XT network."

The last paragraph was interesting.

"Sydney-based IDC analyst Mark Novosel said New Zealanders were being charged higher-than-average prices for mobiles, compared with other countries, but that there was not much difference between Telecom and Vodafone's pricing."

So who's making the big profit from Vodafones sales??

Why the heck aren't they buying the phones directly off the manufacturer? I just had a look at what Brightstar Corporation do - getting stuff from point (A) to point (B). Nice to see that Telecom is paying through the nose for something a middle manager should be able to do.

Give me $45,000 a year, a phone and a cat for companionship and I certainly wouldn't be charging 30% profit margins.

The volumes that Telecom would require would barely register on a manufacturers radar compared to the likes of AT&T.

I imagine that Brightstar buy at serious enough scale to get a better price than Telecom could by themselves, and (in theory) share the benefit with Telecom.

From reading this story it seems like they were not sharing the benefit at all.

keewee01

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#412528 3-Dec-2010 15:15

NonprayingMantis:
kawaii:
old3eyes: FYI.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4417844/Phone-buyers-wearing-cost-of-deal/

"United States-based Brightstar Corporation has been accused of making excessive profits from a contract under which it supplies most of the mobile phones for Telecom's XT network."

The last paragraph was interesting.

"Sydney-based IDC analyst Mark Novosel said New Zealanders were being charged higher-than-average prices for mobiles, compared with other countries, but that there was not much difference between Telecom and Vodafone's pricing."

So who's making the big profit from Vodafones sales??

Why the heck aren't they buying the phones directly off the manufacturer? I just had a look at what Brightstar Corporation do - getting stuff from point (A) to point (B). Nice to see that Telecom is paying through the nose for something a middle manager should be able to do.

Give me $45,000 a year, a phone and a cat for companionship and I certainly wouldn't be charging 30% profit margins.

The volumes that Telecom would require would barely register on a manufacturers radar compared to the likes of AT&T.

I imagine that Brightstar buy at serious enough scale to get a better price than Telecom could by themselves, and (in theory) share the benefit with Telecom.

From reading this story it seems like they were not sharing the benefit at all.

+1 - Telecom is an absolute minnow in the mobile world and would probably have to pay the lowest tier prices if dealing direct. The Brightstar arrangements helps them get new phones sooner, and also the occasional exclusive release.

old3eyes

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#412558 3-Dec-2010 16:44

keewee01:
NonprayingMantis:
kawaii:
old3eyes: FYI.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4417844/Phone-buyers-wearing-cost-of-deal/

"United States-based Brightstar Corporation has been accused of making excessive profits from a contract under which it supplies most of the mobile phones for Telecom's XT network."

The last paragraph was interesting.

"Sydney-based IDC analyst Mark Novosel said New Zealanders were being charged higher-than-average prices for mobiles, compared with other countries, but that there was not much difference between Telecom and Vodafone's pricing."

So who's making the big profit from Vodafones sales??

Why the heck aren't they buying the phones directly off the manufacturer? I just had a look at what Brightstar Corporation do - getting stuff from point (A) to point (B). Nice to see that Telecom is paying through the nose for something a middle manager should be able to do.

Give me $45,000 a year, a phone and a cat for companionship and I certainly wouldn't be charging 30% profit margins.

The volumes that Telecom would require would barely register on a manufacturers radar compared to the likes of AT&T.

I imagine that Brightstar buy at serious enough scale to get a better price than Telecom could by themselves, and (in theory) share the benefit with Telecom.

From reading this story it seems like they were not sharing the benefit at all.

+1 - Telecom is an absolute minnow in the mobile world and would probably have to pay the lowest tier prices if dealing direct. The Brightstar arrangements helps them get new phones sooner, and also the occasional exclusive release.

Maybe then Telecom should tie in with AT&T and Telstra to obtain a bulk discount. They did this with the CDMA network by partnering with Sprint..

Regards,

Old3eyes

SpikeyLemon

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#413793 7-Dec-2010 00:16

old3eyes:
Maybe then Telecom should tie in with AT&T and Telstra to obtain a bulk discount. ?They did this with the CDMA network by partnering with Sprint..

I thought they (TelecomNZ) still do seeing 850/2100 on XT is sort of more a USA frequency.

matisyahu

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#413797 7-Dec-2010 01:00

NonprayingMantis:
kawaii:
old3eyes: FYI.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4417844/Phone-buyers-wearing-cost-of-deal/

"United States-based Brightstar Corporation has been accused of making excessive profits from a contract under which it supplies most of the mobile phones for Telecom's XT network."

The last paragraph was interesting.

"Sydney-based IDC analyst Mark Novosel said New Zealanders were being charged higher-than-average prices for mobiles, compared with other countries, but that there was not much difference between Telecom and Vodafone's pricing."

So who's making the big profit from Vodafones sales??

Why the heck aren't they buying the phones directly off the manufacturer? I just had a look at what Brightstar Corporation do - getting stuff from point (A) to point (B). Nice to see that Telecom is paying through the nose for something a middle manager should be able to do.

Give me $45,000 a year, a phone and a cat for companionship and I certainly wouldn't be charging 30% profit margins.

The volumes that Telecom would require would barely register on a manufacturers radar compared to the likes of AT&T.

I imagine that Brightstar buy at serious enough scale to get a better price than Telecom could by themselves, and (in theory) share the benefit with Telecom.

From reading this story it seems like they were not sharing the benefit at all.

What benefits do we get at consumers? I look at the phone range and it is crap - out of date android phones, no name smart phones running operating systems no one gives a flying continental about and out of date EOL Windows Mobile 6.5 based mobile phones.

Where is at the very least some Android 2.2 based mobile phones? where is the WP7 phone that'll work on the frequencies Telecom XT Network operates on? I know such a phone exists because AT&T sells it!

Quite frankly, from start to finish the CEO and management of Telecom has been a monumental failure; first they align themselves with Yahoo (heard of this cute little company Google? yeah, well, they're hot and Yahoo is not - you might as well be saying you're going to have a partnership with AskJeeves if one is going to talk about irrelevant search engines and services), then they launch a Bebo phone (who the heck uses that? why not launch a MySpace phone whilst we're on the subject of services no one cares about), they fail to get a decent selection of smart phones in and when they do they're all running old and crusty versions of Android.

Sorry, this episode with Brightstar is one in a long line of stupid decisions where no one will be held accountable for - and the funny part, try getting a job at Telecom! its like a locked union shop!

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

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quickymart

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#414023 7-Dec-2010 14:02

I got a job with them, twice, without too many hassles. That last part makes you sound rather bitter, IMO - what job were you going for?

freitasm

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#414025 7-Dec-2010 14:05

SpikeyLemon:
old3eyes:
Maybe then Telecom should tie in with AT&T and Telstra to obtain a bulk discount. ?They did this with the CDMA network by partnering with Sprint..

I thought they (TelecomNZ) still do seeing 850/2100 on XT is sort of more a USA frequency.

No, not exactly. 850 MHz WCDMA is used by Telecom XT (New Zealand), Telstra NextG (Australia) and AT&T (USA).

In the USA only AT&T uses 850 MHz WCDMA. T-Mobile uses 1900 MHz WCDMA, which is not used anywhere else in the world.

old3eyes

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#414093 7-Dec-2010 15:52

freitasm:
SpikeyLemon:
old3eyes:
Maybe then Telecom should tie in with AT&T and Telstra to obtain a bulk discount. ?They did this with the CDMA network by partnering with Sprint..

I thought they (TelecomNZ) still do seeing 850/2100 on XT is sort of more a USA frequency.

No, not exactly. 850 MHz WCDMA is used by Telecom XT (New Zealand), Telstra NextG (Australia) and AT&T (USA).

In the USA only AT&T uses 850 MHz WCDMA. T-Mobile uses 1900 MHz WCDMA, which is not used anywhere else in the world.

T-mobile uses AWS which uses two frequencies for 3G..

"The AWS band uses microwave frequencies in two segments: from 1710 to 1755 MHz, and from 2110 to 2155 MHz. The service is intended to be used by mobile devices such as wireless phones for mobile data, video, and messaging services."

AT&T 3G uses 850 / 1900

Regards,

Old3eyes

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#414097 7-Dec-2010 15:54

Yep, sorry, T-Mobile is 1700/2100, AT&T is 850/1900.

munchkin

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#414206 7-Dec-2010 19:32

In addition to Telstra and AT&T, Don't forget all these other places/operators that use UMTS Band V:

Australia: Vodafone

Brazil: TIM Brasil, Vivo

Canada: Rogers/Fido, Bell, Telus, Sasktel

Israel: Pelephone

Philippines: SMART

Thailand: STAC, True Move

And because they operate in multiple countires;

Claro: Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala

Movistar: Chile, Columbia, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, Venezuela

Tigo: Honduras, Gautemala

It's worth noting all operators in Brazil use both 850/2100, as does Pelephone in Israel and SMART in The Philippines, and that Vodafone AU operate on 850/900/2100.

ajw

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#414225 7-Dec-2010 20:03

freitasm: Yep, sorry, T-Mobile is 1700/2100, AT&T is 850/1900.

Also wind mobile and mobilicity use 1700/2100 in Canada.