Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Finland's nuclear winter

Finland's going to get a lot colder. A Platinum Club mega-uber value reader there points me to the new pricing plans of Saunalahti's Nettipuhelin (netphone). Salient points:

Startup costs 0
Monthly fee 0
On net calls 0
PSTN minutes 1 cent per minute + 10 cent set up (international calls are highly competitive)
GSM calls 7 cents per minute + 10 cent set up
Calls to Saunalahti GSM network 5 cents per minute + 10 cent set up
Bring your own ATA or use softphone
Port your PSTN number or pick a new one in any area code
Use any Internet connection (i.e. service not limited to Saunalahti ADSL)

This is incredibly aggressive, to say the least, and as he points out you can barely get local minutes in Finland for 1 cent, let alone international. But check out the 3G tariffs:

Unlimited on-net minutes start at EUR20 per month
Unbundled minutes are 7 cents or 500 minutes for EUR18
Bundled, unlimited minutes on all GSM networks is EUR50 per month
3G data is EUR10 for 128 kbps, EUR30 for 384 kbps and EUR40 for 1 Mbps
Sign a two-year contract, get a 128kbps datacard plan for EUR10

What's the Finnish for "ouch"?

No comments: