Is the internet fast? How about the tariff? Interpretation of virtual operator's actual measurement

IT 168 Evaluation 20 13 In the first half of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the draft of "Pilot Measures for Resale of Mobile Communications", which is an opportunity to promote the "virtual operator" that has been commercialized. Although the topic of virtual operator has been hotly debated, the industry also holds two different attitudes towards virtual operator: positive and negative. But many friends, including the author, have many questions about virtual operator, including what is virtual operator? How is the call quality in virtual operator? How about the internet speed? Will it go bankrupt after use, and so on. Today, the author finally got the virtual operator 170 card of Yin Tian Communication. After two days' trial, I'll give you a brief explanation about virtual operator on the Internet.

What the hell is virtual operator?

Every new word has a relatively professional explanation, and virtual operator is no exception. The full name of virtual operator we are talking about today should be Mobile virtual operator (MVNO), which means having one or more capabilities (such as technical capabilities, equipment supply capabilities, market capabilities, etc.). ). For the partners who form cooperative relations with telecom operators in a certain business or several businesses, telecom operators will hand over the business to virtual operator for development according to a certain proportion of interests, and they will spare no effort to do the most important work. At the same time, telecom operators themselves are also directly developing users. Virtual operator is like an agent. They "contracted" some communication networks from three basic operators, namely China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, and then sold them to consumers through their own billing system, customer service number, marketing and management system.

I said a lot in a fog, and I think everyone guessed that the above paragraph was copied and pasted directly from Baidu Encyclopedia. To put it more popularly, virtual operator, such as JD.COM Telecom and Yin Tian Telecom, buy calls, traffic and other resources from China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, and then sell them to consumers at their own prices. In fact, this concept is not far away from us. Nowadays, there are many broadband virtual operator in broadband services. For example, operators such as Great Wall Broadband and Broadband Pass purchase resources from basic operators and resell them to consumers, so that they can make profits and greatly reduce the cost of accessing the Internet.

Although the definition and principle are relatively simple, virtual operator's access conditions are still very strict. At present, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued two batches of virtual operator licenses, including JD.COM Yin Tian Communication, Zhejiang Lianlian Technology, Yule, Hu Axiang Lian Xin, Wei Bei Communication, Wang Wan Zhicheng, Dixintong, Sharing Online Network Technology, Telephone World Digital Chain Group, bus online Holdings Co., Ltd. and the second batch of Ai Shide, Xiamen Sanwu Interconnect, Suzhou Snail Digital, Gome, Suning Shangyun, Mid-term Group, Changjiang Times Communication and Yuante Communication Technology. Its access standards are very strict. Although resale enterprises do not build their own mobile communication network infrastructure such as wireless network, core network and transmission network, they must establish customer service system, business management platform and business support system such as billing and accounting as required.

What is the current situation in virtual operator? Is the internet speed call reliable?

In order to ensure the continuous implementation of Mobile virtual operator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stipulates that during the pilot period in virtual operator, the three major operators will cooperate with at least two or more virtual operator. Give the best resources to virtual operator. Virtual operator also allows prepaid services for up to 65,438+0 years. In fact, people are most concerned about how the basic services in virtual operator are doing. Will there be any problem with the call quality? What's the speed of the internet and so on. The author also tested it here.

At present, there are basically two ways of cooperation between virtual operator and the three major operators. The first is the package agent mode, that is, the basic operators provide their existing packages to virtual operator, and virtual operator will package them into their own brands for sale. However, the contents and charges contained in the packages are set by the basic operators, and then virtual operator will give certain discounts according to the actual bill amount of users, generally around 50%. This model is currently adopted by China Telecom. The other mode is resource pool mode, in which the basic operators determine the wholesale price of basic voice and traffic, and virtual operator can set the package price by itself. Unicom adopts this model. This way is more flexible, and virtual operator can freely design big meals, which is why all the numbers provided by virtual operator are WCDMA. Yin Tian Telecom's virtual operator SIM card in our hand is also dominated by China Unicom. For the network situation, we also tested it. As can be seen from the test results, the network situation is basically the same as Unicom's 3G network. There is no difference between daily use and Unicom 3G.

Is the tariff in virtual operator really cheap?

For virtual operator, there are basically two kinds of friends around him. Category I: What is virtual operator? Does it taste good？ The second person thinks that virtual operator is a small operator whose tariff is cheaper than the three major operators, and uses tariffs to attract consumers. Tariff is also a topic that virtual operator has been unable to avoid. Is the tariff in virtual operator really cheap? Let's look at this part of the article.

▲ Beijing Unicom phone bill package

▲ Yin Tian Communication Call Package

▲ Description of JD.COM Communication Expenditure Package

▲ Description of Ai Shide Communication Fee Package

Here we take Beijing Unicom, JD.COM Communication, Yin Tian Communication and Ashdod Communication as examples. Among them, we can see that in JD.COM Communication, Yin Tian Communication and Ai Shide Communication, the minimum call per minute is basically maintained at 0. 15 yuan per minute, and the traffic is basically maintained at 0.2 yuan per megabit. On the other hand, China Unicom 136 yuan package includes 500 minutes of calls and 1GB traffic. According to the tariffs of three virtual operator companies, Unicom 136 yuan package = 500 * 0.15+1000 * 0.2 = 275 yuan. To be sure, the simple basic telephone charges in virtual operator are not cheaper than those in China Unicom, or even more expensive. This is not consistent with the model that we imagined that virtual operator attracts users with low telephone charges.

In fact, the price should be the magic weapon of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. After a long period of network construction, for new users, the cost basically lies in the cost of maintaining the established network, and the marginal cost is getting closer to zero, so it is profitable for the three major operators to reduce the unit price of telephone charges. For virtual operator, it is impossible for the three major operators to give low discounts to these emerging operators. The sword of price war is always in the hands of the three major operators, that is, the owners of the means of production. From this point of view, the attitude of the three major operators towards virtual operator should at least not be a warm welcome. At the same time, virtual operator should not be allowed to have a great advantage in price. Without the price advantage, will virtual operator lose its competitiveness? Of course not.

▲ The number of virtual operator and users in the world.

We may need to refer to the development history of virtual operator to better understand whether price is the core competitiveness of virtual operator. The prototype of virtual operator was 1998, when Sense Company in Europe found that roaming charges between major operators in Northern Europe were quite expensive. It hopes to build a roaming-free virtual operator network by renting enough services from major European operators, but most operators refuse to cooperate for the simple reason that the price itself is the final decision. Why give it to other companies? If everyone thinks that roaming charges should be reduced, major operators can reduce them together without users. Because the similar anti-monopoly clauses were not perfect at that time, the ambitious Sense company finally closed down, from which we can see that virtual operator's hope to take low basic telephone charges as the embryonic form of the strategy was slaughtered. At present, the most successful Virgin virtual operator communication in the world was founded in 1999, also known as the first year of virtual operator. Today, after 15 years of development, virtual operator has been calm, and there are few profitable virtual operator. Virgin is one of them. Its initial business model is to divide users into standard, special and other three types, and provide lower-priced value-added services for three different groups of people. However, basic services such as telephone, Internet access and SMS have not widened the gap with traditional operators. Virgin thinks that price is the advantage of traditional operators, but for virtual operator, it is to serve specific people more deeply. Meeting the deep-seated needs of different groups of people is how virtual operator survives in the cracks.

What is the significance of virtual operator's existence? Is it worth starting with?

As mentioned earlier, virtual operator is no different from conventional operators in terms of call quality and network quality, but the basic telephone charges are not much better than those of traditional operators. So, virtual operator is meaningless? Of course not. In fact, Virgin Mobile has set a good example for virtual operator in China.

Although traditional operators have the means of production such as this network base station, for a huge user group, the package can't satisfy anyone. You may find that no package can just meet your needs, and sometimes you will find that you need different network communication services at different stages of your work and life. This deeper service is the core competitiveness of virtual operator.

▲ What is the global target group of virtual operator?

For example, if you are a business traveler and need to travel for a long time every year, how to solve the switching problem between local network communication and foreign and even international network communication is a difficult problem for the three major operators to solve at present. For example, whenever China Mobile wants to open international roaming, it needs to deposit 500 yuan in advance, and it needs to close roaming after returning home, which is very troublesome. In this way, if virtual operator can provide more suitable and convenient international roaming service, users may choose virtual operator when going abroad. For another example, if you are an online shopping user, virtual operator can push special information to you in real time, and cooperate with e-commerce to launch services such as virtual operator Zone. At this time, virtual operator calling card is more like a disguised membership card. Although it is not much cheaper in basic communication services, it has won your heart in some value-added services.

These are just two types of people, and there are more people worth exploring in virtual operator. Let's take a look at virtual operator, which is now commercialized. Basically, the main package is completely optional, or there is no package to play and consume as far as possible, and there is no roaming basic network calling service in China. Not much has been done in other value-added services. For example, as an e-commerce operator, JD.COM only introduced measures to send shopping traffic, but it did not really meet the needs of shopping users. It can be said that virtual operator still has a long way to go to change its concept.

▲ New measures for virtual operator or traditional operators to deal with WeChat.

At this stage of the article, the author also wants to mention a very interesting phenomenon. Tencent, which had the highest voice before, didn't get the virtual operator license. We also know that IM social software such as WeChat and QQ are eroding the traditional traffic and data services of operators. It can be said that the networks of the three major operators are making wedding clothes for Tencent to some extent. Operators and Tencent had conflicts before, and operators tried to make WeChat users pay a certain fee every month to continue using it. Tencent failed to obtain the virtual operator license, largely because of a game between traditional operators and Internet companies. As mentioned earlier, traditional operators are unhappy with virtual operator in some aspects. As for the erosion of IM social software such as WeChat, the three major operators also want to provide users with more targeted services through the more flexible features of virtual operator. So how can they compete with Tencent?

The most important question is whether to choose virtual operator. At present, the basic communication price and value-added services in virtual operator are not perfect. However, with 19 licensed virtual operator participating in the competition, I believe the service will be improved day by day, although it is not recommended to take virtual operator as the main number at present. But I believe it won't be long before you can't live without virtual operator. Maybe you can buy a card and keep it now. After all, many virtual operator people support choosing beautiful numbers. It is also a good choice to buy a number and keep it for later use.

Summary of netizens' concerns

Does the 170 number support the call attribution?

Through the test, at present, virtual operator 170 segment does not support the display of calling place. Whether it can be supported in the future depends on the regional sales of theNo. Breakdown by major virtual operator.

Will there be a signal difference on virtual operator?

Our previous test results show that virtual operator signal is the same as Unicom. However, whether there will be network congestion when a large number of users are online at the same time is still unknown.

Will virtual operator go bankrupt?

In theory, it is possible to close the service after a period of operation, but due to the strict access mechanism, even closing the service will compensate the loss of users.

How is the customer service in virtual operator?

At present, virtual operator has adopted a customer service system based on online business hall supplemented by telephone customer service. 99% of the business can be solved through the online business hall. However, many telephone customer service services in virtual operator have not started 7*24 hours service.

Can virtual operator enjoy the 4G network?

At present, there is no 4G network using traditional operators. Whether it can be supported in the future still needs to be negotiated between virtual operator and traditional operators. It may not be possible to operate the 4G network on the virtual operator card in a short time.