Bouygues Telecom to launch first quadruple play in France
Next week, users in France will have a chance to sign up for a “quadruple play” package: high-speed Internet access, TV with up to 90 channels, unlimited fixed telephony and a mobile phone service for a stunningly low price of €45 ($60) from Bouygues Telecom. This is the first quadruple play offer in France.
Many observers had expected Iliad-Free to be the first operator in France to propose this kind of offer, but a series of delays in the allocation of the fourth cellular license put those plans on hold (note: Iliad has announced its intention to bid for the fourth license and added that it would offer quadruple play, but Bouygues has beat them to it).
One must remember that Martin Bouygues, who owns a significant stake in Bouygues Telecom, also owns TF1, a major TV channel. Bouygues Telecom, as a mobile operator, was a latecomer to cellular telephony in the mid-1990s, but since then, it has aggressively gone after France Telecom’s and Cegetel’s (SFR) market share.
In 2008, the three French mobile operators (France Telecom, Cegetel (SFR) and Bouygues) were found guilty of running an illegal cartel and price-fixing scheme between 2000 and 2002. They were ordered to pay €442 million in fines. The mobile market has been profitable for the three operators for many years, but the French government’s plan to allocate the fourth license, announced twp years ago to introduce competition, is causing much concern among them. I believe this quadruple play will be rapidly adopted by other operators to the benefit of most users. This is an important move that will reactivate competition between operators in France.
Late to the ADSL market
Bouygues’s strategy was initially not to be a fixed line operator. It focused on the cellular market. However, in October 2008, Bouygues Telecom decided to offer ADSL service, competing directly with France Télécom, Neuf Telecom, Free, Numericable and others. Using the Cegetel (SFR) backbone, Bouygues began aggressively promoting its BBox and a triple play subscription for €30, similar to Iliad-Free’s offer. We do not have the figures on Bouygues’s share of the ADSL market, but they are said to modest.
The new Bouygues quadruple play offer, which is named Ideo, is seen as a significant move by the company to boost its ADSL subscriber numbers and to strengthen its position as a competitive telecom operator in France now that Iliad-Free is almost certain to enter the mobile market upon the allocation of the fourth cellular license. Bouygues Telecom is the smallest of the three mobile operators in France with an estimated market share of 20 percent and about 10 million mobile subscribers.
Ideo: competitive pricing compared to Orange
Technically, Ideo is based on the recent triple play offer with some of Bouygues’s existing mobile services added in. The service will have several levels of pricing, essentially regarding the choices made by the user for the mobile part of the subscription. However, users must be willing to enter into a two-year contract.
Those who want to sign a one-year contract will have to pay a monthly extra charge of €7 to their chosen plan. Plans start at €44.90 with a 20 Mbps Internet ADSL access, a TV package allowing free and unlimited access to 90 TV channels, unlimited calls to all fixed numbers in France and to over 100 international destinations, and a mobile plan that includes two hours of calls. With this mobile plan, users can send and receive an unlimited number of text messages; they also have unlimited 3G+ data access on their mobile phone.
The other Ideo subscription plans that include two hours of free calls are:
- €55.90 with unlimited mobile calls after 8 pm on weekdays;
- €65.90 with unlimited mobile calls after 7 pm on weekdays and all week end;
- €75.90 with unlimited mobile calls after 6 pm on weekdays and all week end.
Subscribers can also ask for 3, 4 or 6 hour mobile plans by adding €6 per month for each additional hour. This offer is very close in terms of price to the initial iPhone offer made by Orange when it launched the iPhone 3G in France, but Orange doesn’t include ADSL access and fixed free telephony!
And Bouygues has recently started selling the iPhone in France at a very aggressive price of €89 for the 8GB version, which is much lower than the price charged by SFR and Orange. Bouygues’s offer was so popular that it sold 40,000 iPhones in 10 days.
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