The notion that a telco’s business will in the future be anchored by broadband services seems increasingly true for mobile service providers as well. A new initiative by PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel) , which has more than 105 million customers, will “give” customers Skype access if they buy mobile broadband service.
That makes the business model for “voice” service “mobile broadband.” Will encouraging Skype compete with the carrier’s own voice offerings? Yes. But the calculation seems to be that there is more to be gained by encouraging mobile broadband service than there is to fear from declining voice revenues.
Telkomsel’s data packages start at 25,000 Indonesian Rupiahs (US$2.81) per month.
