Speednet introductory prices lower than B.T.L.

With the media focussing on the courtroom and boardroom battles for B.T.L., we neglected to report that Speednet, the upstart newcomer to the telecom scene, last week published its rates. And while those charges fall somewhat short of provoking the U.S. style price war that consumers were hoping for, they do represent some savings, particularly for pre-paid cellular users. The chart on your screen compares Speendnet’s Smart service with that of B.T.L.’s DigiCell. For calls to any other phone made using the post-paid service, for which you receive a monthly bill, the charges by the two companies are identical: fifty cents a minute during peak time, twenty-five cents off peak.

Using prepaid service, however, the Speednet calls are seventy-five cents during peak and fifty-five cents off peak, versus eighty-five and sixty cents respectively with B.T.L. This difference of ten and five cents per minute amounts to an average savings of close to ten percent in favour of Speednet. Combined with its SMS charges of twenty cents per message versus twenty-five cents for B.T.L., it looks like Speednet, assuming its service is up to speed, should be able to find some running room in what has until now, been a one horse race.