BEIJING, April 23 (Reporter Wu Tao) Recently, unlimited flow packages have started to reduce prices, some of which have been as low as 100 yuan, and some directional flow cards are also very preferential. Why is this? Is it really affordable? Are there other "tricks" in it?
Data Map: Citizens are using traffic to surf the Internet. China News Service reporter Hou Yushe
Unlimited flow package upgrade and price reduction
Recently, the unlimited traffic packages of the three major operators have been upgraded one after another, and China Mobile has launched "I can use my card (new)"; China Unicom launched the "Ice God Card"; China Telecom’s Tianyi Unlimited Package National Edition is richer in grade.
One common feature of these packages is that they are cheaper and more affordable than the original unlimited flow packages, and some packages have a monthly fee as low as less than 100 yuan. For example, China Unicom’s "Little Ice Card" only needs 99 yuan every month. You know, the original China Unicom’s unlimited flow "ice cream package" also needs 198 yuan per month.
Moreover, the new unlimited traffic package is more affordable. It turns out that China Mobile’s "Use my Card" 238 yuan package contains 20GB of traffic, and the speed limit is not higher than 1Mbps after the cumulative usage traffic in the month exceeds 50GB, and the network is disconnected after the usage traffic in the month exceeds 50 GB; The "I can use my card (new)" 188 yuan package contains 40GB of traffic, and the speed limit is not higher than 1Mbps after exceeding it. After the traffic exceeds 100GB in the current month, I can continue to surf the Internet, and the speed limit is not higher than 128Kbps. However, this number card product is a new user-specific number card.
The reporter also noticed that some directional unlimited flow cards are not small, and there are more and more varieties. For example, Tencent’s Wangka, the out-of-package traffic in 1 yuan includes 800M national traffic, but now some users can apply for including 1GB domestic traffic for the out-of-package traffic in 1 yuan as long as they pre-store a specified amount of phone bills.
Data map: users are watching videos with mobile phone traffic. Zhongxin. com Cheng Chunyu photo
Is it really affordable? Speed limit still exceeds a certain flow.
As for the reasons for the preferential price reduction of unlimited traffic packages, Ma Jihua, an analyst in the telecommunications industry, said in an interview with Zhongxin.com that the telecommunications network is getting better and better and the carrying capacity is strengthened; In addition, it is the need of competition, and there is a certain price reduction every year, otherwise it may cause the loss of users; In addition, in the environment of speeding up and reducing fees, it is inevitable to reduce fees.
Fu Liang, an independent telecom analyst, believes that in recent years, telecom operators have been operating in a dividend period. They are reducing prices while encouraging users to use more traffic. On the whole, traffic revenue is still quite large.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in February, the average mobile Internet access traffic per household reached 2.63GB, a year-on-year increase of 151%. In terms of revenue, from January to February, the three major operators completed mobile data and mobile Internet services revenue of 99.5 billion yuan, up 15.1% year-on-year, accounting for 45.9% of telecom business revenue.
However, it should be noted that although the unlimited flow package is more affordable, most of them still have speed limit requirements. For example, in China Telecom’s unlimited flow package, the speed reduction threshold is set for each file, and the speed limit is not higher than 1Mbps after exceeding it.
Earlier, Xiang Ligang, an expert in the telecommunications industry, pointed out in an interview with Zhongxin.com that the number of connections that a base station can support is limited, and the setting of slowing down is mainly due to the limited capacity of the mobile communication network. The reporter noted that some operators said in the explanation that the move was to ensure the fair use of all users’ networks.
A directional traffic card says it has unlimited traffic, but it sets various requirements, so it is difficult for users not to use the traffic outside the package. APP screenshot
There are other "routines" for directed traffic.
In addition to using the speed limit after the flow exceeds a certain value, there are other restrictions on the directional flow card. These directional traffic cards all claim that using the designated APP will not generate traffic charges. Is this really the case? Will the traffic charges come down after using this card?
Zhang Dashan (pseudonym), who often watches TV dramas on an APP, told the reporter of Zhongxin.com that after running an APP-oriented traffic card, the phone bill did not drop, but increased. "Later, I consulted the customer service to know that many apps said that they were free of traffic charges, but the traffic pushed by third-party advertisements on the platform during watching videos was charged separately."
Zhang Dashan said: "When watching videos, advertisements are placed in front of or in the middle of the film. Non-members will automatically broadcast advertisements when they click on the video. This is impossible to prevent, and it is basically impossible to use traffic outside the package."
The reporter’s investigation found that in addition to the third-party advertisements on the video platform, the barrage, comments, sharing, live broadcast, MV, third-party login and webpage information in many apps are not within the scope of targeted traffic. Some even have to charge a separate traffic fee for APP startup advertisements.
Take the "Big and Small Fish Card" that Youku and China Telecom cooperated as an example. The explanation shows that "the exclusive traffic of Youku video does not include the traffic generated by loading pictures, texts and barrage in Youku client, and loading pictures and texts when opening Youku video." Of course, third-party advertising is not included.
This result is directly reflected in the user’s communication costs. For another example, take Tencent Dawang Card as an example. If a user only uses the free traffic fee APP specified by Dawang Card, in principle, 19 yuan in January will be enough. In fact, it is very easy to generate out-of-package traffic, and as long as it generates out-of-package traffic, even if it is 1KB, it is also a day to collect 1 yuan, so it costs almost 50 yuan every month.
Ma Jihua analyzed that at present, the publicity of directional traffic cards is vague, which are within the scope of free traffic, mainly depending on how the APP and the basic manufacturers negotiate, but neither the APP nor the operator will publicize the contract to consumers, so now there is no uniform standard for this piece, and consumers are also in a fog.
"In addition, at present, the APP has many functions and many calling patterns. Some calls may not be included in the directed traffic-free, but on the mobile side, many consumers think that clicks in the APP are internal calls, which will lead to such doubts." Ma Jihua said.
Some insiders told reporters that even so, some directional traffic cards meet the needs of some specific users. Whether it is cost-effective, users need to explore and use it to find a package that suits them. (End)
关于作者