I agree with Oo completely — with their new data sharing feature, Glo has just managed to pull off what might be the next big game-changer for mobile internet connectivity in Nigeria, since they introduced per-second billing in 2003.
Suddenly, I don’t have to buy multiple subscriptions on my devices. My brother serving in Kaduna is too broke to browse the internet? No problem. Instead of sending him money, I just share my data plan with him. In all, I can enable up to six SIMs on one data subscription on Glo’s nationwide hotspot. This is a big deal.
It doesn’t just work out for the subscriber, it works out for Glo too. Big time. While the other guys are busy playing catch-up, I expect Glo will be adding quite a few subscribers to its customer base, or at least getting the runaway ones to dig out their dormant Glo SIMs from the dark corner of the closet where they’ve consigned them to. If it catches on, subscriber attrition will definitely go down — afterall, it wouldn’t be a simple thing to switch providers when all your devices and extended family are sharing the same data plan.
But is it a great deal? I don’t know. Oo lucidly sets out the consumer economics of this new plan in his post on the subject. And in case you missed it, they’ve even revised their data caps upward and all, making the offer even more compelling. But beyond versatility and cost, if network quality is crap, then one might as well not subscribe. Two months ago, I ditched my Glo SIM because I couldn’t understand why the 24 hour data plan I’d subscribed to insisted on working only in the dead of the night.
Let me put the issue in proper context. Whenever and wherever Glo’s network screws up, you and your five data dependants are screwed too, and likely without a plan B. Unless you feel like buying alternative SIM cards for all your data dependencies. As great as this innovative feature is in principle, it’s benefits can easily be overshadowed by plain crappy service.
However, for the sake of science, I’m going to close my eyes and attempt a N7,500 experiment. I’m going to subscribe to Glo’s Always Max, just to put the data sharing to the test.
I have two Glo data enabled sims, so I could certainly conduct this experiment on my own. But it’s occurred to me that since the data sharing feature supports up to six people, why not do a comprehensive test?
Having more people on this experiment will lend it more empirical weight. and for this purpose, I’ve enlisted Mr. Mobility’s help as an “expert” participant. Now all we need are three more people from our bleeding-edge audience (yes, you) to volunteer. Together, we’ll share and put this hotspot feature through its paces and report our findings.
Note that this isn’t a test for functionality — as much as I’d like nifty options like usage analytics or even custom data caps for each hotspot subscriber (just to make sure one person doesn’t hog the data at everybody else’s expense), it’s pretty safe to rule those out. The bar here isn’t even high, we just want to see if it works as advertised.
We’ll let you know as soon as we conclude the modalities for the experiment (this week definitely). In the meantime, has anyone used Glo’s data sharing feature yet?
[image via Flickr/David Goehring]
