People unaware of telephony costs with rise of direct debit

An overview of findings for a perception survey concerning fixed telephony usage in Malta Fieldwork carried out in July to September 2019 found take-up of fixed telephony strongest in the post-paid segment, with the proportion of respondents purchasing their post-paid plan in a bundle rising marginally from 71% in 2017 to 72% in 2019.

Around 55% of respondents to the 2019 survey say they are not aware of their monthly expenditure on the fixed telephony service. This is because their bundle subscription makes it difficult for them to apportion their monthly cost by each bundle component.

The rise in monthly payments via direct debit may also contribute to the lack of knowledge on monthly expenditures. 45.5% say they are aware of their monthly expenditure on the fixed telephony service, with this segment comprising 7.5% saying they spend up to €9.99 per month, 12.2% saying they spend between €10 to €19.99 (up from 11% in 2017), 19.9% saying they spend between €20 to €49.99 (up from 7.0% in 2017) and 5.3% saying they spend €50 or more per month (up from nil in 2017).

Knowledge of a one-minute voice call is also low. This is somewhat expected given the availability of voice call allowances in today’s fixed telephony plans, especially the unlimited onnet allowances with the purchase of bundles that typically include the fixed telephony service by default.

Amongst the few respondents saying they are aware of the cost of a one-minute fixed voice call, 47% find it ‘cheap’, down by almost half over the previous study. The number of respondents that perceived the cost to be expensive stood at 19%, up from just 4% a year earlier, a decline of 14% over the previous study.

86% of all survey respondents saying they have a subscription claim they are satisfied (34%) to very satisfied (52%) with the service. Switching between operators remains low, with 92% of all respondents saying they have not switched operator in the previous two years.

More significantly, 50% of respondents saying they are not satisfied with their current service quality also say they did not switch their current provider.

Of note is that the majority of those who switched service provider in the previous two years (57%) ported their fixed line number as well.

In line with the strong take-up of mobile telephony services and rising usage of OTT-based calling, respondents classify fixed telephony as their least preferred platform for voice calling purposes.

Nonetheless, just 29% of those that prefer mobile telephony say they would be ready to terminate their fixed telephony subscription over the next 12 months.

EMCS Consulting carried out the survey contacting 852 randomly selected households via telephone interviews (CATI) on behalf of the MCA.