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While your Internet bill is likely north of $50 a month, customers of Slovak Telecom in the eastern European nation of Slovakia will get a free speed upgrade to 300/30Mbps effective Aug. 1, with no change in price.
Slovak Telecom customers on its fiber to the home network subscribed to the super premium “Magi Internet XL” plan will continue to pay just over $27 a month for the service. Customers will see the speed upgrades gradually roll out across the service area over the summer and fall. Customers will be given new equipment to support the new speeds.
Meanwhile, a competing fixed line provider, Slovanet, is taking a cue from Google Fiber and polled residents of the city of Dunajska Streda where it should deploy its fiber to the home service first. Slovanet customers will be able to buy 100Mbps fiber broadband through its subsidiary MadNet, along with a 100-channel TV package and phone service.
The broadband package alone costs $31 a month, more expensive than Slovak Telecom, but it comes with some stunning promotions for customers, starting with a $1.36 installation fee. The other generous offers: a Lenovo brand tablet for $1.36, a cordless phone for $1.36, and a choice of wireless routers as low as $1.36. An add on wireless package is also promotionally priced at $1.36.
Slovanet offers a 20-channel basic cable TV package at no charge to current customers and a 35-channel TV package that includes many of the most popular channels in Slovakia for $12 a month. Phone service is free if you are willing to pay 5¢ per minute to numbers of non-Slovanet customers (calling other Slovanet customers is free).
If you want unlimited local/regional calling, the phone service costs $5.29 a month. Unlimited long distance can be added for $10.77 a month.
Why? Because they can! Just like Microcell in Canada in 1996 who went to 10 cent digital wireless pricing when the rest of the world was at 50 cents.
The salaries of people living in Slovakia are probably much lower, so it probably doesn’t feel that cheap to them.
Slovakia Telecom is owned primarily by Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile unit and the fixed costs to build and operate the network are very similar across the EU although salaries vary. However, Slovak income levels are increasing at a rapid pace and what sets this country apart from ours is that telecommunications prices are dropping there while rising here. In 2007, Slovakia reached the highest economic growth among the members of OECD and the EU. The annual GDP growth was 10.4% at constant prices, with the record level of 14.3% reached in the fourth quarter. In 2010, Slovakia grew by 4.0% which… Read more »