3GWeek - Asia’s Mobile News

Indonesia’s third largest mobile operator, XL, launched a new service regarding its BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS). Dubbed as the first in the world of its kind, it enables BlackBerry users to subscribe (and pay) the BIS, daily! Unlike the monthly payment which is suitable for postpaid consumers, this “daily subscribers” seems to aim for prepaid consumers with limited budget who would like to test out the quality of XL’s BIS. The price is quite cheap, only IDR 5000 per day (about USD 50 cent), while the monthly payment may cost IDR 149,000 (or about USD 15) for unlimited bandwidth access of browsing, push email, and chatting.

There is no locking policy for BlackBerry device in Indonesia, as there are tons of services offer to unlock them (like in Hongkong and Singapore). Thus, three mobile operators which have license for BlackBerry service are competing each other to have as many subscribers as they can. Previously, Indosat, which currently has the largest subscribers unveiled its weekly payment solution.

BlackBerry in Indonesia have gained massive interest, thanks to the ability of push email and chatting directly to the handset and the offering of fixed unlimited Internet access. Currently, BlackBerry Curve and BlackBerry Bold are the highest selling devices in Indonesia, although offered in more expensive prices, if compared to other countries. In Indonesia, BlackBerry Bold is sold for IDR 8.5 million (about USD 850), while you can have it with USD 600 or USD 700 in Australia and Hongkong.