It remains to be seen whether the game was worth it, in a Telecom market relatively sclerotic by the lack of competition. First elements of response: yes, Digi is shaping up to be the price-breaker that it promised. But no, all of its services are not yet available, or not yet available everywhere. Very far from there.
Mobile subscription: a price never seen before in Belgium and only one subscription offered
Regarding GSM subscriptions, it’s hard to say that DIGI Mobile is not hitting hard: it is launching a first offer at just €5 per month, which offers unlimited calls and SMS, and, above all, 15 Gb of data. “For almost 75% of Belgians, this mobile offer includes enough data so that they can stay connected and fully enjoy their activities“, comments the operator, based on the BIPT (Telecoms Police) report established last December.
It is, on paper, much more interesting (cheaper, but also more generous in terms of data) than the least expensive postpaid offers on the Belgian market. Hey!, an Orange subsidiary, offers 150 minutes of calls, unlimited SMS and 5 GB of data for €7 per month. Scarlet, a low-cost subsidiary of Proximus, prices its smallest subscription at €8 per month in exchange for 300 minutes of calls, unlimited SMS and only 1 GB of data.
Note that DIGI only offers one mobile subscription. The operator’s trick is to play on a reduced price for the additional Gb consumed. Beyond 15 Gb, each additional Gb will be billed at €0.60. According to DIGI, it’s 100 times cheaper than the competition. For example, consuming 30 Gb will cost €14, consuming 50 Gb will cost €26 and consuming 100 Gb will cost €56. Note that the more data-hungry one is, the more Digi’s interest loses its strength in the face of well-established competition. It is especially among lighter or medium users that the offer proves attractive.
It is also even more aggressive than certain prices charged by Digi in southern Europe.
Major detail to know: DIGI’s ambition is indeed to set up its own physical mobile network. To cover the Belgian territory, count on at least 4,000 pylons, masts or antennas to deploy. This own network is, due to timing, not yet in place.
To plug the hole, and be able to deploy commercially, DIGI therefore concluded an agreement with Proximus, for a period of 5 years. It is therefore mainly the very reliable network of the historic operator that DIGI will use, in the first part of its commercial life in Belgium. We imagine that selling subscriptions for €5 by renting the infrastructure of a competing operator will make it difficult to achieve profitability in the first years of DIGI’s life. The bet of acquisition at all costs, and at all costs, seems to have been taken, to grow the customer portfolio very quickly.
Since Proximus “lends” its network to the new entrant on the market, the coverage day one will be national.
The only downside for the potential customer: if DIGI promises “reliable” access to the 4G network from day 1, it is careful not to mention 5G at first… Jeroen Degadt clarified this during the press conference: using the Proximus network currently excludes the possibility of connecting to the 5G network. This will be possible when DIGI has progressed in installing its own network.
Internet at home: crazy prices, ridiculous availability (for now)
On the residential Internet side, same story. Entirely structured around fiber, which DIGI has been deploying for months, sometimes with great fanfare for urban planning, the operator is completely smashing the current price floors.
Prices start with Digi Fiber Essentials, at just €10 per month for a speed of 500 Mbps (download, download). At similar speed and technology, current Proximus Maxi Fiber customers pay six times more: €62.99 per month, excluding promotions.
Count on €15 per month for 1 Gbps (DIGI Fiber Max) and €20 per month for a connection up to 10 Gbps (DIGI Fiber Ultimate), including free installation and Wi-Fi. For comparison, the The nearest subscription, with the historic operator Proximus but also with Telenet, costs €78 per month (excluding promo), for a speed of 2 Gbps theoretical maximum… Count on €65 at Orange (Giga Fiber).
Proximus increases its prices, still waiting for DIGI and price war between operators: how telecoms prices are evolving
There is therefore, here too, a promise largely kept on prices. But the huge downside lies in the microscopic accessibility of these internet offers at the moment… We are only talking about a few Brussels municipalities! Attractive, the commercial proposal is therefore above all a promise on paper, for the moment. As for whether a collaboration with Proximus to extend the offer to more households is on the table, the managers were clear: no agreement has (yet?) been signed. But in the event of collaboration with Proximus, and therefore rental of its infrastructure, the pricing policy could not be the same.
“DIGI Fiber is currently available in Cureghem and is gradually being deployed in other municipalities in Brussels, before expanding to other Belgian municipalities. A link on our site allows consumers to check if DIGI Fiber is already available in their area“, further indicates DIGI.
The fourth operator nevertheless has the ambition to “connect up to 2 million homes to the DIGI fiber network within five years, focusing mainly on urban areas.” For other regions, he advocates the creation of a single network through open access to available ducts and maximum reuse of existing passive infrastructure. On its website, the operator details its coverage in real time.
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Digital television: nothing to report
Digi hopes, in the long term, in our country addicted to the “pack”, to become a convergent and multiple play operator. Digital television is therefore part of its plans. But not for the moment: the operator is not ready, and announces the launch of a commercial offer “in the future”. This offer will be structured, as with the competition, around two options, either a classic decoder or an app to install on a smart TV. “To get an idea of the prices, you can already look at what is offered in the other countries covered by DIGI“, says Jeroen Degadt.
In Spain, DIGI therefore offers an offer of €7 per month, with 100 channels, including sports channels.
And if the prices are not yet available on the DIGI website, you can already find what will make up this offer, with two options. First, the DIGI TV Essentials offer, made up of 45 channels, with the possibility of restarting a current program, watching a TV program for up to 7 days, and launching 3 simultaneous streams. This offer will be available “on your TV, smartphone or tablet, DIGI TV App and DIGI TV Box included”, we read.
The other, more substantial offer is called DIGI TV Max and consists of 76 channels. For sports channels – and in particular the broadcast of Jupiler Pro League matches – no information has yet been given.
“First step”
By delaying its entry into the Belgian market, Digi has already allowed the competition to adjust its prices in a forward-looking manner. But the market did not necessarily anticipate such low prices, particularly on residential Internet. It remains to be seen how the competition will adapt. For the consumer, competitive stimulation is always good news.
“Our mission is to make telecommunications accessible to all Belgians. Today, we are announcing the first step in our commitment to providing exceptional quality services at an affordable price,” summarizes Jeroen Degadt, Managing Director of DIGI Belgium. “We design, test and build everything ourselves, optimizing our costs so that the savings are passed directly to our customers.”
In its commercial philosophy, Digi promises, finally, to draw a line under automatic price increases, and to ignore promotions and product combinations. “Customers can choose their à la carte services from the DIGI offer or personalize their package, with prices that always remain fixed and transparent.”
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