Update 20 August 2013: All competitor telcos have updated pricing since we created the original inforgraphic. It has now been updated to reflect the most current pricing for each carrier.
Optus today announces a milestone change in the way its mobile plans are constructed, offering new plans billed in talk-time minutes, rather than a dollar value, unlimited SMS and MMS on all plans, and true caps on excess usage for use in Australia (excluding premium services).
Additional charges for excess talk-time and data usage on all mobile plans will be billed with bolt-on bundles, rather than per-minute or per-megabyte. If a customer exceeds their talk-time they are charged $10 for each additional 200-min bundle, moving them up into the next plan tier for the rest of the month.
The same applies with additional data, which is charged at $10 for each additional 1GB.
Confusingly, customers on the $50 plan are charged a mini $5 bundle when they first exceed either minutes or data, buying an extra 150-mins or 500MB data. After this, it reverts to the $10 bundles as described above.
These excess usage charges are eventually capped. Once a customer has paid for 800-minutes in a month, the next $10 charge converts their account to unlimited calls for the month. Similarly, data usage is capped, with 20GB the maximum a customer can upgrade to in a single month.
Apples and oranges
Comparing the new Optus plans to existing plans from the other telcos, it is clear how much easier they are to understand. It is also pretty obvious that they are not much cheaper, if they are at all.
But it is when excess charges kick in that these new plans really shine, as you can see below.
Things to come
This is a big change for Optus, and it has the potential to drive similar change at Vodafone and Telstra, but it is not the first time we've seen plans like this in Australia.
Some of the smaller telcos have been selling plans costed in minutes for some time, like Yatango and, more recently, Spintel and Cmobile.
Live Connected was first to experiment with a sliding payment scheme, where customers moved into a higher pricing bracket when they exceeded their plan inclusions, rather than charging exorbitant excess usage rates.
More importantly, the changes in the way Optus designs and describes its plans are likely to precipitate down to the MNVO telcos that resell service on the Optus network; telcos like Vaya, TPG and Amaysim.
While it may not be immediately obvious, some of these telcos resell entire Optus plans, rather than designing their own. So, if Optus moves to minutes, we expect these smaller players to follow suit -- sooner rather than later.
Joseph Hanlon
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