In times when broadband segment continues growing but not as fast as in 2008, companies start to look for alternatives to ensure customer’s loyalty and aggregate value added services that will impact on the final invoicing. Within this framework, Telefónica has launched “Terabox” in Argentina, a service for Speedy customers, which enables to back up information, store data in the cloud and manage it, and access files remotely.
The service is intended for residential users and SMEs who need to duplicate their information to make it available anywhere they are and share it with different users at different levels. After its implementation in Spain, this service reaches Argentina, which, consequently, becomes the first Latin American country to use it.
“Eight out of ten Argentineans do not make remote back ups of their information, but everybody worries as the potential loss they could suffer would cause terrible damage,” explained Andrés Tahta, Speedy’s Marketing Director.
The executive indicated that the service was very much appreciated by their customers, both residential users aand SMEs, during the testing phase. In this second segment, he highlighted that “it is ideal for SMEs, as they can store information at the same level as big companies do”.
For residential users, the Terabox monthly fee is US$ 3.82 (including tax), while for SMEs, it is US$ 5.11. New customers will have the service subsidized for the term the promotion they have subscribed to lasts.
An investment of US$ 514,000. “The customer may set the service to, for instance, use a certain bandwidth when they decide to make the backup of a certain type of files, without interfering with other activities they are performing,” Tahta added. The Terabox hosting, development of which involved a US$ 514,000 investment, is carried out in Telefónica’s data centers, jointly with Digidata, the company in charge of the storage.
The service is quickly installed, since once the service is hired, it is activated in less than 72 hours. The subscriber should download into his computer two files that weigh less than 10 MB to have the full Terabox package: It includes Teraback up, Teraexplorer (data storage in a virtual hard disk), and Terabox web (remote file access). As from that moment, the subscriber will be able to upload all the information they want to store and make backups with no space limits.
Tahta said that for a year and a half the company’s aim is to build a higher level of customer’s loyalty, and Terabox is part of that strategy. The expectation is that, out of the 1.25 million broadband subscribers who currently belong to Telefónica in Argentina, 90,000 will hire the service during this year.
When asked about what would motivate customers to have such kind of prepaid service when they can resort to free alternatives, the executive answered that “the main advantage is that Speedy customers are being offered a comprehensive service”.
Besides, the Marketing Director pointed out that this is Terabox’s first phase and in the next few months we should expect the announcement of new services based on this alternative. Tahta compared Terabox’s possible effect with Aula Speedy 365’s impact: this value service created in Argentina –and exported- went from being an added value service for Speedy customers to an educational social network that aims at becoming the most important in Latin America.