New Year's openings: do operators turn to face Internet users?

It seemed that there were no more New Year's surprises – the last week of December had begun. Taking into account the time for advertising promotion plus the non-instant reaction of consumers, it is no longer necessary to hope for a significant effect of even the most tempting promotion. At least in terms of the final indicators of reporting for 2005. However, it is possible that the initiative for the Internet audience will have time to "work" even in such a short time: the network people are generally more dynamic and tend to respond quickly to any innovations. The only question is how much the Internet clientele is interesting for operators, i.e. can this segment of the market be considered mass.

MegaFon-Moscow: looking at the online store

History

MegaFon-Moscow has always been proud of its reverent attitude to the average income per subscriber, the validity period of payments automatically regulated this figure (ARPU) at a level of at least 8.5 USD. per month for prepaid subscribers. So-called "renewal cards" can be ignored, they are used by relatively few. As MegaFon itself writes: "LITE tariff series are so profitable and economical that many subscribers often do not have time to use the funds credited to the account . ". Non-paying subscribers are ruthlessly cleared from the lists of active ones after 90 stays of the number in blocking. Such an approach on the Moscow market looks unusual, especially in the conditions of at least a six-month (or even a year) stay of "sleeping" subscribers in the databases of other operators. In this sense, MegaFon's statistical reserves are impressive, in the event of a transition to a generally accepted accounting scheme, the official number of subscribers will instantly increase by a good quarter.

In the light of the above, the latest initiative of MegaFon-Moscow looks unusual: all new Light subscribers are "gifted" with an additional 180 days of payment validity. It is still far from bringing the statistics in line with the obviously inflated figures of other players on the market ("gift" 180 days are valid only when the kit is activated before January 1, 2006), but it is still alarming. It would seem, why? The operator's shares are not listed on the stock exchange and there seems to be no point in chasing the numbers of virtual subscribers. Moreover, according to repeated statements by the company's management, the connection plan for 2005 has long been completed. However, this non-standard (for MegaFon) move was made. Two hypotheses can be made:

• The operator intends to gradually bring its statistics to the accepted standard on the Moscow market. Indeed, why be modest with 3+ million real subscribers when, according to the generally accepted scheme for calculating these subscribers, there are a good million more?
• The multi-year legal battle over the disputed quarter of the operator's shares is drawing to a close and a public listing is possible in the near future. With all the ensuing consequences for reporting – long live 150% penetration of cellular communications in the market of the Moscow region, why is MegaFon worse than other players in the market?

Quite "on topic" quote from MegaFon North-West news: From December 1, 2005, for LITE subscribers in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, the validity period of payments made using Unified payment cards of the MegaFon network and LITE payment cards after their activation, are NOT limited.

An additional bonus in the form of a payment gift card for 150 rubles also looks atypical for MegaFon, although in reality it is not much different from standard offers on the Moscow market: the arithmetic result of https://tonaton.com/c_other-jobs the purchase of Light [the starting amount on the balance of the Light contract plus the payment gift card minus the cost of the set] almost to the ruble coincides with the result of MTS Jeans [$5 on the balance of the Jeans contract minus the weighted average (in Moscow) cost of the set]. True, MegaFon's 150-ruble generosity applies only to online purchases of contracts, so there is no need to talk about massive sales of SIM cards.

Online store

But we digress from the main topic. You can find the shop layout here. The online store of contracts has been successfully tested in St. Petersburg since December 14 and has proved its effectiveness. Indeed: the concept of "beautiful number" is largely subjective, a huge number of people are looking for an important combination for them personally. For example, numbers that match the office or home number, or just a convenient (in their opinion) combination. Objectively beautiful numbers are not included in the general list, but the choice itself is very attractive, for this you can go to the office. And, of course, such a "shop on the couch" contributes to additional connections. Moreover, it is unlikely that connections will be virtual – a carefully and personally chosen number has every chance of becoming the main one.

Moscow MegaFon adopted a good experience, although it did it in a truncated version and not without errors. Obviously, they were in a hurry to launch the project even before the new year and did not properly check the scheme of the online store, more on that below. Most importantly: in the northwestern version, you can search and select the desired number by mask (given numbers), but in MegaFon-Moscow, this option is not provided in principle. For example, they did not want to advertise the number of rooms "to choose from", but these very numbers are not so few, there seems to be no reason for "embarrassment". To shovel through a dozen pages in search of one cherished number out of 400 put up for sale is not an easy task, why not just copy the unconditionally successful St. Petersburg version?

From the point of view of logic, such an online store clearly lacks the final element – the function of delivering the selected contract to your home. They will probably do it later, but for now you will have to drive up to the office to get the contract. In the future, the choice of one of two options arises: free delivery of the contract to the house or delivery of a payment gift card in exchange for the client's arrival at the MegaFon office. Moreover, in the case of choosing a phone number, you need to come to a certain office (on Novinsky Boulevard): apparently, it is there that all the envelopes with the numbers listed on the site are physically present.

How it works

The scheme for buying a contract in MegaFon-Moscow looks quite simple:

• 1. We go to the "shop", select one of the ten contracts listed.
• 2. We choose the appropriate phone number from a rather extensive list. On the first day of the store's work, less than a quarter of the originally offered numbers remained by the evening, now the list is regularly updated and for each position there is a choice of 250-200 numbers. It will not be possible to select two or more rooms at the same time, each contract will have to be drawn up on the website separately.
• 3. We fill out a standard questionnaire – name / surname, address, passport data.
• 4. We confirm the order, print out the subscriber's registration card.
• 5.We receive a confirmation email with the order number and the term for "buying out" the contract in the office (10 days from the date of order).
• 6. We issue, pay and pick up envelopes with kits in the office. The registration procedure takes 10-12 minutes of pure time (three visits) plus the waiting time in the queue (in my case, about 10 minutes).
• 7. At the exit, we warmly say goodbye to Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden, who solemnly hand the buyer a traditional cord around the neck and a beer bottle opener.

Funny incidents

The "date of birth" section behaves mysteriously in the questionnaire filled out on the site. At first, the foresight of the developers pleases (you won’t be able to select an age of less than 18), but then, in the mode of checking the correctness of the entered data, the system will display the current date in the “date of birth” column. It is useless to return / change the date, anyway, the subscriber will be a newborn. Although the correct date is fixed in the depths of the system, we are convinced of this at the last stage of registration when printing out the info card. And we recommend printing an info card with the selected number, as the confirmation email will say "Selected number: No number selection". During the process of issuing the kit in the office, the info card will be stamped and registered, and then a blank info card form will be carefully placed in the box along with a warning sheet about the need to fill out the card and bring it to the office.

Beeline: Biofis split personality

Familiar Biofis has been completely redesigned with a new interface and a number of additional features. Until February 15, the "Service Management Center" exists simultaneously in two forms, after February 15, the old version is promised to be permanently closed. You can start exploring the new version from here, on the same page there are links to updated user manuals. We read a fairly detailed FAQ on the new system here, to enter the new "Center" you will have to register again and receive a password by calling the service number 0674999999. The old password (received before the new version of the "Center" appeared) continues to be valid until February 15 to enter the old version.

It makes no sense to describe new features, it's better to try it yourself. There is noticeably more information on the state of the account; data can be analyzed, compared for different periods, compared by individual parameters of expenses using filters. For lovers of beautiful pictures, the program draws histograms, any tabular information can be loaded into MS Excel by pressing a special button. If you have two or more numbers on one personal account, you can use the function of comparing expenses for different numbers. For credit tariffs, online detailing has appeared with the ability to view information for the current period (starting from the date of the last invoice). Now it is possible to edit personal data (address, contact information, etc.), add/change favorite numbers, etc.

Additional features will appear gradually, as the "Center" is filled with data in a new format, now it is mainly information transferred from the old office. For example, all old receipts of money into the account are treated as "cash payments", although bonus accruals, credit card payments and some minor adjustments are obvious from the amounts.

There is a lot of information, but the interface is unusual and at first it is difficult to navigate in the new "Center". Although in general the structure looks logical. Users of analog modems or GPRS connections are unlikely to be pleased with the new Biofis, loading heavy pages will take several minutes. In this sense, ISSA MTS is much more comfortable and, compared to Beeline's "Service Control Center", simply flies. The new "Center" is so massive and clumsy that it's time to ask Beeline for a separate lightweight version with a minimum set of basic functionality. Let not so intelligent, but fast and undemanding to the width of the Internet channel.

New Year's openings: do operators turn to face Internet users?

It seemed that there were no more New Year's surprises – the last week of December had begun. Taking into account the time for advertising promotion plus the non-instant reaction of consumers, it is no longer necessary to hope for a significant effect of even the most tempting promotion. At least in terms of the final indicators of reporting for 2005. However, it is possible that the initiative for the Internet audience will have time to "work" even in such a short time: the network people are generally more dynamic and tend to respond quickly to any innovations. The only question is how much the Internet clientele is interesting for operators, i.e. can this segment of the market be considered mass.

MegaFon-Moscow: looking at the online store

History

MegaFon-Moscow has always been proud of its reverent attitude to the average income per subscriber, the validity period of payments automatically regulated this figure (ARPU) at a level of at least 8.5 USD. per month for prepaid subscribers. So-called "renewal cards" can be ignored, they are used by relatively few. As MegaFon itself writes: "LITE tariff series are so profitable and economical that many subscribers often do not have time to use the funds credited to the account . ". Non-paying subscribers are ruthlessly cleared from the lists of active ones after 90 stays of the number in blocking. Such an approach on the Moscow market looks unusual, especially in the conditions of at least a six-month (or even a year) stay of "sleeping" subscribers in the databases of other operators. In this sense, MegaFon's statistical reserves are impressive, in the event of a transition to a generally accepted accounting scheme, the official number of subscribers will instantly increase by a good quarter.

In the light of the above, the latest initiative of MegaFon-Moscow looks unusual: all new Light subscribers are "gifted" with an additional 180 days of payment validity. It is still far from bringing the statistics in line with the obviously inflated figures of other players on the market ("gift" 180 days are valid only when the kit is activated before January 1, 2006), but it is still alarming. It would seem, why? The operator's shares are not listed on the stock exchange and there seems to be no point in chasing the numbers of virtual subscribers. Moreover, according to repeated statements by the company's management, the connection plan for 2005 has long been completed. However, this non-standard (for MegaFon) move was made. Two hypotheses can be made:

• The operator intends to gradually bring its statistics to the accepted standard on the Moscow market. Indeed, why be modest with 3+ million real subscribers when, according to the generally accepted scheme for calculating these subscribers, there are a good million more?
• The multi-year legal battle over the disputed quarter of the operator's shares is drawing to a close and a public listing is possible in the near future. With all the ensuing consequences for reporting – long live 150% penetration of cellular communications in the market of the Moscow region, why is MegaFon worse than other players in the market?

Quite "on topic" quote from MegaFon North-West news: From December 1, 2005, for LITE subscribers in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, the validity period of payments made using Unified payment cards of the MegaFon network and LITE payment cards after their activation, are NOT limited.

An additional bonus in the form of a payment gift card for 150 rubles also looks atypical for MegaFon, although in reality it is not much different from standard offers on the Moscow market: the arithmetic result of the purchase of Light [the starting amount on the balance of the Light contract plus the payment gift card minus the cost of the set] almost to the ruble coincides with the result of MTS Jeans [$5 on the balance of the Jeans contract minus the weighted average (in Moscow) cost of the set]. True, MegaFon's 150-ruble generosity applies only to online purchases of contracts, so there is no need to talk about massive sales of SIM cards.

Online store

But we digress from the main topic. You can find the shop layout here. The online store of contracts has been successfully tested in St. Petersburg since December 14 and has proved its effectiveness. Indeed: the concept of "beautiful number" is largely subjective, a huge number of people are looking for an important combination for them personally. For example, numbers that match the office or home number, or just a convenient (in their opinion) combination. Objectively beautiful numbers are not included in the general list, but the choice itself is very attractive, for this you can go to the office. And, of course, such a "shop on the couch" contributes to additional connections. Moreover, it is unlikely that connections will be virtual – a carefully and personally chosen number has every chance of becoming the main one.

Moscow MegaFon adopted a good experience, although it did it in a truncated version and not without errors. Obviously, they were in a hurry to launch the project even before the new year and did not properly check the scheme of the online store, more on that below. Most importantly: in the northwestern version, you can search and select the desired number by mask (given numbers), but in MegaFon-Moscow, this option is not provided in principle. For example, they did not want to advertise the number of rooms "to choose from", but these very numbers are not so few, there seems to be no reason for "embarrassment". To shovel through a dozen pages in search of one cherished number out of 400 put up for sale is not an easy task, why not just copy the unconditionally successful St. Petersburg version?

From the point of view of logic, such an online store clearly lacks the final element – the function of delivering the selected contract to your home. They will probably do it later, but for now you will have to drive up to the office to get the contract. In the future, the choice of one of two options arises: free delivery of the contract to the house or delivery of a payment gift card in exchange for the client's arrival at the MegaFon office. Moreover, in the case of choosing a phone number, you need to come to a certain office (on Novinsky Boulevard): apparently, it is there that all the envelopes with the numbers listed on the site are physically present.

How it works

The scheme for buying a contract in MegaFon-Moscow looks quite simple:

• 1. We go to the "shop", select one of the ten contracts listed.
• 2. We choose the appropriate phone number from a rather extensive list. On the first day of the store's work, by the evening there were less than a quarter of the originally offered numbers, now the list is regularly updated and for each position there is a choice of 250-200 numbers. It will not be possible to select two or more numbers at the same time, each contract will have to be drawn up on the website separately.
• 3. We fill out a standard questionnaire – name / surname, address, passport data.
• 4. We confirm the order, print out the subscriber's registration card.
• 5.We receive a confirmation email with the order number and the term for "buying out" the contract in the office (10 days from the date of order).
• 6. We issue, pay and pick up envelopes with kits in the office. The registration procedure takes 10-12 minutes of pure time (three visits) plus the waiting time in the queue (in my case, about 10 minutes).
• 7. At the exit, we warmly say goodbye to Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden, who solemnly hand the buyer a traditional cord around the neck and a beer bottle opener.

Funny incidents

The "date of birth" section behaves mysteriously in the questionnaire filled out on the site. At first, the foresight of the developers pleases (you won’t be able to select an age of less than 18), but then, in the mode of checking the correctness of the entered data, the system will display the current date in the “date of birth” column. It is useless to return / change the date, anyway, the subscriber will be a newborn. Although the correct date is fixed in the bowels of the system, we are convinced of this at the last stage of registration when printing out the info card. And we recommend printing an info card with the selected number, as the incoming email confirmation will indicate "Selected number: No number selection". During the process of issuing the kit in the office, the info card will be stamped and registered, and then a blank info card form will be carefully placed in the box along with a warning sheet about the need to fill out the card and bring it to the office.

Beeline: Biofis split personality

Familiar Biofis has been completely redesigned, with a new interface and a number of additional features added. Until February 15, the "Service Control Center" exists simultaneously in two forms, after February 15, the old version is promised to be permanently closed. You can start exploring the new version from here, on the same page there are links to updated user manuals. We read a rather detailed FAQ on the new system here, to enter the new "Center" you will have to register again and receive a password by calling the service number 0674999999. The old password (received before the new version of the "Center" appeared) continues to be valid until February 15 to enter the old version.

It makes no sense to describe new features, it's better to try it yourself. There is noticeably more information on the state of the account; data can be analyzed, compared for different periods, compared by individual parameters of expenses using filters. For lovers of beautiful pictures, the program draws histograms, any tabular information can be loaded into MS Excel by pressing a special button. If you have two or more numbers on one personal account, you can use the function of comparing expenses for different numbers. For credit tariffs, online detailing has appeared with the ability to view information for the current period (starting from the date of the last invoice). Now it is possible to edit personal data (address, contact information, etc.), add/change favorite numbers, etc.

Additional features will appear gradually, as the "Center" is filled with data in a new format, now it is mainly information transferred from the old office. For example, all old receipts of money into the account are treated as "cash payments", although bonus accruals, credit card payments and some minor adjustments are obvious from the amounts.

There is a lot of information, but the interface is unusual and at first it is difficult to navigate in the new "Center". Although in general the structure looks logical. Users of analog modems or GPRS connections are unlikely to be pleased with the new Biofis, loading heavy pages will take several minutes. In this sense, ISSA MTS is much more comfortable and, compared to Beeline's "Service Control Center", simply flies. The new "Center" is so massive and clumsy that it's time to ask Beeline for a separate lightweight version with a minimum set of basic functionality. Let not so intelligent, but fast and undemanding to the width of the Internet channel.

New Year's openings: do operators turn to face Internet users?

It seemed that there were no more New Year's surprises – the last week of December had begun. Taking into account the time for advertising promotion plus the non-instant reaction of consumers, it is no longer necessary to hope for a significant effect of even the most tempting promotion. At least in terms of the final indicators of reporting for 2005. However, it is possible that the initiative for the Internet audience will have time to "work" even in such a short time: the network people are generally more dynamic and tend to respond quickly to any innovations. The only question is how much the Internet clientele is interesting for operators, i.e. can this segment of the market be considered mass.

MegaFon-Moscow: looking at the online store

MegaFon-Moscow has always been proud of its reverent attitude to the average income per subscriber, the validity period of payments automatically regulated this figure (ARPU) at a level of at least 8.5 USD. per month for prepaid subscribers. So-called "renewal cards" can be ignored, they are used by relatively few. As MegaFon itself writes: "LITE tariff series are so profitable and economical that many subscribers often do not have time to use the funds credited to the account . ". Non-paying subscribers are ruthlessly cleared from the lists of active ones after 90 stays of the number in blocking. Such an approach on the Moscow market looks unusual, especially in the conditions of at least a six-month (or even a year) stay of "sleeping" subscribers in the databases of other operators. In this sense, MegaFon's statistical reserves are impressive, in the event of a transition to a generally accepted accounting scheme, the official number of subscribers will instantly increase by a good quarter.

In the light of the above, the latest initiative of MegaFon-Moscow looks unusual: all new Light subscribers are "gifted" with an additional 180 days of payment validity. It is still far from bringing the statistics in line with the obviously inflated figures of other players on the market ("gift" 180 days are valid only when the kit is activated before January 1, 2006), but still it is alarming. It would seem, why? The operator's shares are not listed on the stock exchange and there seems to be no point in chasing the numbers of virtual subscribers. Moreover, according to repeated statements by the company's management, the connection plan for 2005 has long been completed. However, this non-standard (for MegaFon) move was made. Two hypotheses can be made:

• The operator intends to gradually bring its statistics to the accepted standard on the Moscow market. Indeed, why be modest with 3+ million real subscribers when, according to the generally accepted scheme for calculating these subscribers, there are a good million more?
• The multi-year legal battle over the disputed quarter of the operator's shares is drawing to a close and a public listing is possible in the near future. With all the ensuing consequences for reporting – long live 150% penetration of cellular communications in the market of the Moscow region, why is MegaFon worse than other players in the market?

Quite "on topic" quote from MegaFon North-West news: From December 1, 2005, for LITE subscribers in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, the validity period of payments made using Unified payment cards of the MegaFon network and LITE payment cards after their activation, are NOT limited.

An additional bonus in the form of a payment gift card for 150 rubles also looks atypical for MegaFon, although in reality it is not much different from standard offers on the Moscow market: the arithmetic result of the purchase of Light [the starting amount on the balance of the Light contract plus the payment gift card minus the cost of the set] almost to the ruble coincides with the result of MTS Jeans [$5 on the balance of the Jeans contract minus the weighted average (in Moscow) cost of the set]. True, MegaFon's 150-ruble generosity applies only to online purchases of contracts, so there is no need to talk about massive sales of SIM cards.

But we digress from the main topic. You can find the shop layout here. The online store of contracts has been successfully tested in St. Petersburg since December 14 and has proved its effectiveness. Indeed: the concept of "beautiful number" is largely subjective, a huge number of people are looking for an important combination for them personally. For example, numbers that match the office or home number, or just a convenient (in their opinion) combination. Objectively beautiful numbers are not included in the general list, but the choice itself is very attractive, for this you can go to the office. And, of course, such a "shop on the couch" contributes to additional connections. Moreover, it is unlikely that connections will be virtual – a carefully and personally chosen number has every chance of becoming the main one.

Moscow MegaFon adopted a good experience, although it did it in a truncated version and not without errors. Obviously, they were in a hurry to launch the project even before the new year and did not properly check the scheme of the online store, more on that below. Most importantly: in the northwestern version, you can search and select the desired number by mask (given numbers), but in MegaFon-Moscow, this option is not provided in principle. For example, they did not want to advertise the number of rooms "to choose from", but these very numbers are not so few, there seems to be no reason for "embarrassment". To shovel through a dozen pages in search of one cherished number out of 400 put up for sale is not an easy task, why not just copy the unconditionally successful St. Petersburg version?

From the point of view of logic, such an online store clearly lacks the final element – the function of delivering the selected contract to your home. They will probably do it later, but for now you will have to drive up to the office to get the contract. In the future, the choice of one of two options arises: free delivery of the contract to the house or delivery of a payment gift card in exchange for the client's arrival at the MegaFon office. Moreover, in the case of choosing a phone number, you need to come to a certain office (on Novinsky Boulevard): apparently, it is there that all the envelopes with the numbers listed on the site are physically present.

The scheme for buying a contract in MegaFon-Moscow looks quite simple:

• 1. We go to the "shop", select one of the ten contracts listed.
• 2. We choose the appropriate phone number from a rather extensive list. On the first day of the store's work, less than a quarter of the originally offered numbers remained by the evening, now the list is regularly updated and for each position there is a choice of 250-200 numbers. It will not be possible to select two or more rooms at the same time, each contract will have to be drawn up on the website separately.
• 3. We fill out a standard questionnaire – name / surname, address, passport data.
• 4. We confirm the order, print out the subscriber's registration card.
• 5. We receive a confirmation email with the order number and the term for "buying out" the contract in the office (10 days from the date of order).
• 6. We issue, pay and pick up envelopes with kits in the office. The registration procedure takes 10-12 minutes of pure time (three visits) plus the waiting time in the queue (in my case, about 10 minutes).
• 7. At the exit, we warmly say goodbye to Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden, who solemnly hand the buyer a traditional cord around the neck and a beer bottle opener.

The "date of birth" section behaves mysteriously in the questionnaire filled out on the site. At first, the foresight of the developers pleases (you won’t be able to select an age of less than 18), but then, in the mode of checking the correctness of the entered data, the system will display the current date in the “date of birth” column. It is useless to return / change the date, anyway, the subscriber will be a newborn. Although the correct date is fixed in the bowels of the system, we are convinced of this at the last stage of registration when printing out the info card. And we recommend printing an info card with the selected number, as the incoming email confirmation will indicate "Selected number: No number selection". During the process of issuing the kit in the office, the info card will be stamped and registered, and then a blank info card form will be carefully placed in the box along with a warning sheet about the need to fill out the card and bring it to the office.

Beeline: Biofis split personality

Familiar Biofis has been completely redesigned, with a new interface and a number of additional features added. Until February 15, the "Service Control Center" exists simultaneously in two forms, after February 15, the old version is promised to be permanently closed. You can start exploring the new version from here, on the same page there are links to updated user manuals. We read a rather detailed FAQ on the new system here, to enter the new "Center" you will have to register again and receive a password by calling the service number 0674999999. The old password (received before the new version of the "Center" appeared) continues to be valid until February 15 to enter the old version.

It makes no sense to describe new features, it's better to try it yourself. There is noticeably more information on the state of the account; data can be analyzed, compared for different periods, compared by individual parameters of expenses using filters. For lovers of beautiful pictures, the program draws histograms, any tabular information can be loaded into MS Excel by pressing a special button. If you have two or more numbers on one personal account, you can use the function of comparing expenses for different numbers. For credit tariffs, online detailing has appeared with the ability to view information for the current period (starting from the date of the last invoice). Now it is possible to edit personal data (address, contact information, etc.), add/change favorite numbers, etc.

Additional features will appear gradually, as the "Center" is filled with data in a new format, now it is mainly information transferred from the old office. For example, all old receipts of money into the account are treated as "cash payments", although bonus accruals, credit card payments and some minor adjustments are obvious from the amounts.

There is a lot of information, but the interface is unusual and at first it is difficult to navigate in the new "Center". Although in general the structure looks logical. Users of analog modems or GPRS connections are unlikely to be pleased with the new Biofis, loading heavy pages will take several minutes. In this sense, ISSA MTS is much more comfortable and, compared to Beeline's "Service Control Center", simply flies. The new "Center" is so massive and clumsy that it's time to ask Beeline for a separate lightweight version with a minimum set of basic functionality. Let not so intelligent, but fast and undemanding to the width of the Internet channel.