Malaysia has the dubious distinction of topping the price charts for leased access in key areas, according to the Asia Pacific Carriers’ Coalition (APCC).
Malaysia topped the survey in Ethernet access and charges $1,900 for a 2-Mbps leased line – the most commonly deployed access bandwidth – compared with the average Hong Kong price of $212, said the survey, carried out for APCC by TRP Corporate.
Although telecom prices across the board are falling, prices in Malaysia rose 28% even after adjusting for inflation and exchange rate fluctuations.
APCC secretary Rajesh Sreenivasan said that while the report deliberately avoided speculating on the reasons for price differentials, the level of competition often played a significant role in influencing prices.
TM officials did not respond to Telecom Asia’s requests for comments on the issue.
“The APCC has always argued that the most effective way to bring down prices is to have a regulatory framework that encourages competition,” he said.
Accounting for currency factors, prices have risen in India, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand.
Charges in India grew by an adjusted average of around 42%, nearly double the increases in the other nations.
India was also the market with some of the greatest variation – at the 2-Mbps tier, the maximum prices are 1,150% more than the region’s average access price. Yet many common access tiers are at the low end of the price scale.In Japan, carriers pay hefty fees for asymmetric leased circuits, although its symmetric DSL prices are among the lowest in the region.
Australia typically stands in the middle of the pack, but the installation prices charged are the highest of all of the countries studied.
Operators typically pay the equivalent of 32% of the first year’s line rental costs in installation charges in Australia, compared to 22% in next-highest China, and just 1% in Hong Kong.
Generally speaking, installation charges in the region are less than 10% of first years’ rental costs – and in seven of the 14 countries surveyed, these costs are less than 5%.
While simple leased circuits are the most typical wholesale access option, groomed circuits capable of supporting multiple customers are popular in some areas.
Their use was only reported in eight of the 14 countries covered – Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Taiwan, China and Thailand. Sreenivasan said this was partly due to inadequate data, but also because the services are just not offered in some countries.
But where they are available, they are often an attractive proposition for both ends of the supply chain, Sreenivasan said.
“When using grooming services, both the carrier and the operator save on hardware interfaces (both capex and opex) and provisioning is simpler,” he said. “This translates to cost savings.”
As a result, groomed access is often substantially cheaper, or only slightly more expensive than simple line rental – except in New Zealand, where higher-speed groomed line rental can be 60-90% more expensive than the simple line alternative.