By Benedict Wee
Telecom has announced its price plans in a media release online.. and boy does it look disappointing:
Though they're not charging extra to call other mobile operators anymore, their monthly (called One Rate) plans are still too expensive for the minutes they're offering. If you get a $50 plan you only get 100 minutes and they're not even giving texts. If you compare it to a smilier Vodafone plan (TXTer 120), you can get 120 minutes, 600 texts, 1 Best Friends (Unlimited call,text,video call to one person) and you get 3 months free plan charges for about $10 more.
The prepaid plan call rates are still the same at 89 cents per minute which is still very expensive combined with the lack of value add ons (like Vodafone's Best Friends or TXT 2000) does put one off. The bonus credit is alright but it just makes calculating the number of minutes confusing. Here's a general summary with the bonus:
The add ons are applied to both Monthly and Prepaid plans which makes me wonder why would someone bother to be under a contract with Telecom when you're charged the same rate as someone who isn't. For texts, TXT 150 is charged at 4 cents per text, TXT 600 at 2 cents and TXT 1500 for 1.2 cents which is pretty decent though they didn't specify if it's to different networks as well. If it is it's much cheaper than Vodafone who's charging 20 cents per text.
$20 gets you about 28 minutes or 71 cents/min,
$40 gets you about 58 minutes or 69 cents/min and
$60 will get you about 89 minutes or 67 cents/min
The add ons are applied to both Monthly and Prepaid plans which makes me wonder why would someone bother to be under a contract with Telecom when you're charged the same rate as someone who isn't. For texts, TXT 150 is charged at 4 cents per text, TXT 600 at 2 cents and TXT 1500 for 1.2 cents which is pretty decent though they didn't specify if it's to different networks as well. If it is it's much cheaper than Vodafone who's charging 20 cents per text. I won't bother to go through the data plans or compare them as they're pretty much the same price and they're still way too expensive to do anything with. 20 MB is the equivalent to watching a Youtube video and I'm not paying $6 to watch a bloody Youtube vid.
So that's that then. Telecom's new price plans are not worth the hype that was brewed and I'm still sticking to the 'wait for 2degrees and see' stance.
Source:
Telecom XT Go for launch
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