Amaysim might be late to the 4G party, but this upgrade signals a few important changes for the telco, and the launch of three Unlimited plans.
From today, services on Amaysim’s new plans and its existing Pay As You Go and Flexi plans will be delivered on the Optus 4G network.
Amaysim is making fun of its delayed entrance into the 4G market, calling itself the Steven Bradbury of telcos, implying it has been waiting for the right moment to add 4G to its plans.
“There was a lot of people saying ‘when are you going 4G’, but we said hang on. Last year was all about networks still being built, 4G device [penetration] was still under 40 percent. For us, it wasn’t there yet, we’ve been waiting for 4G to become mainstream,” said Julian Ogrin, Amaysim CEO.
“We’ve been successful on 3G for the last four years. Our job is to democratise 4G, so it had to be ready and mainstream.”
According to Ogrin, that time is now, with the increased network footprint delivered by the Optus 700MHz network, and the fact that over half of the population will be using a 4G phone by the middle of the year.
Even more Unlimited
As well, customers interested in Unlimited plans can now choose from three different data levels paired with unlimited national calls and messaging. Heavy data users will rejoice at the 6GB option for $54.95 per month, while less frequent data users can choose 1.5GB data for $29.95 per month.
| Amaysim plans | $29.90 | $44.90 | $54.90 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calls | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Data | 1.5GB | 4GB | 6GB |
| Text and MMS |
Unlimited SMS/MMS
|
Unlimited SMS/MMS
|
Unlimited SMS/MMS
|
| Network | Optus 4G | Optus 4G | Optus 4G |
|
Check out the plans |
Go for it | Go for it | Go for it |
Current Unlimited customers may be disappointed to learn that while the existing $44.95 price point remains, it now comes with 4GB data, rather than the 5GB they currently enjoy. For these customers, Amaysim plans to ‘grandfather’ the older plan, allowing existing customers to continue pay the same money for the same 5GB per month, but at 3G speeds only
“All of our customers can move over [to one of the newer 4G plans] whenever they want. We’ll have a simple mechanism in our apps so that customers can migrate over when they get a 4G phone, or when they decide they want to move over,” said Ogrin.
Boosting its bolt-ons
Amaysim will also launch a couple of new data add-on in the near future, and extend the expiry on the add-ons beyond the billing month. There will be a 1GB option for $9.90 and a smaller 300MB option for $4.95.
“What we’re doing is extending to a 30-day expiry. So, if you buy one in the last three days of the month, it carries on for a full 30 days. All other add-ons in the marketplace are either use it or lose [within a single billing cycle].”
The move is a welcomed one. Like Virgin Mobile’s new Data Rollover feature, this longer expiry on data add-ons is designed to make sure we have a chance to use the data we are paying for.
“It’s not longer a megabyte market, it’s a gigabyte market. It’s about streaming, music and video streaming, it’s about browsing, it’s everything. If someone is trying to budget their megabytes, it’s a bad experience. We want people to see value in this area.”
Killer kilobytes
In line with this message about having users get the most from the data they pay, Amaysim is making a hugely important decision in the back-end, and will now measure data usage in kilobytes, rather than in larger megabyte increments.
This may seem like a tremendously unsexy change, but as we’ve looked at previously, it can make a sure difference to the amount of data you actually get to use from month to month.
At the same time, Amaysim will increase its excess data usage fee from $0.05 per MB to $0.072 per MB, a move against the telco tide, and one Ogrin says is tied in with the shift to per KB data billing.
“Previously if you used a data session for 500kb we’d have charged you for 1MB. Now we charge you only for what you use," explains Ogrin.
Joseph Hanlon
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