For the first time in 3 years, amaysim is adjusting its high-value Unlimited plan, adding to both the included value and the monthly tariff.
From September 1, amaysim Unlimited customers will pay $44.90 to recharge their accounts, and will receive 5GB of data for the month, instead of 4GB. This moves the MVNO further away from its closest competitors in terms of price, but reaffirms its leadership in data inclusions.
The new $45 price tag aligns amaysim with the new BYO Optus My Plan Plus offer, though it more than doubles the data included in the Optus plan. Other MVNOs will best amaysim on price, but far less included value. Aldi Mobile for instance, offers unlimited calls and messages for $35 per month, but with only 2GB of data.
High price of keeping social
Amaysim will also begin counting data used in social media applications against a customers monthly total. Currently, all data associated with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is unmetered. From September 1, this data use will be deducted from the 5GB allowance.
“The whole market moved away from free social media about 9-months ago,” said Amaysim’s new Managing Director Julian Ogrin.
“We’ve held on as long as we can, [but] if you’re getting YouTube videos in Facebook or you’re getting YouTube videos out of Facebook, it’s a real complexity for the carriers to figure out how to bill for it.”
The amount of data involved is also of a concern, with Facebook features like auto-play videos adding significantly to the demand. Once the data used by auto-play videos is tallied up across amaysim’s subscriber base, it becomes a problem — so much so that amaysim created a blog post on its own Facebook page to educate its customers on how this feature could be disable.
Dodging the data shocker
Adding to the price of the plan and removing free social media might prove to be unpopular moves, but Ogrin explained that these changes reflect a jump in the data appetite among across Australia, and result in growing concerns over data-related Bill Shock.
“Last year alone there was nearly $400-million wasted on bill shock, and of all bill shock related events, over half … came from data,” said Ogrin.
Amaysim commissioned a study through Galaxy Research looking at data usage trends. The results revealed that many phone users in Australia are in the dark about how high excess data charges can be.
“88-percent of customers don’t know how the data they use is translated to their bills.” Ogrin said, referring to data in the Galaxy study that suggested only 12-percent of respondents could accurately estimate how much data is used when they stream videos or music online.
23-percent of people surveyed said they ‘know very little how much data they use during online mobile activities’.
“We see this as a real opportunity. [amaysim] has always been the educator, a pioneer of no worries billing. We want to take that into the data world.”
Joseph Hanlon
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