MVNO Spintel becomes one of Australia's first telcos to describe mobile post-paid plan inclusions in talk-time minutes, with its new Build Your Own 4G Mobile plan.
This is a clear move away from the existing language in post-paid mobile phone plans which have traditionally spoken about inclusions by using a high-value dollar figure -- $500 worth of calls and texts, for example.
The Spintel plan starts at a flat $9.95 monthly tariff for all customers, with bolt-ons available for talk, text and data. The basic package includes 100MB data, but an additional 2GB can be added for $10 a month. Unlimited SMS and 1000-minutes of talk time can be added to the plan for $10 each. The maximum plan fee is $39.95 per month.
Talk-time and data bolt-ons can only be applied to the plan once. You can't, for example, apply two data packs for a total of 4GB. The plans are flexible though, so changes can be made to any of the add-ons, and will take effect at the beginning of the next billing month.
If customers do not choose the bolt-on options they will be charged at 25c per minute for calls, 25c for text messages and 9c per MB for data use over the plan limit. SpinTel uses the Optus network for its 4G plans.
Minute by minute
This shift from dollars to minutes in mobile plan descriptions is a welcomed change for an industry notorious for confused and disgruntled customers. Previously, customers would have to figure out how much they could use their phones by dividing the total of the included value of their plan by the per-minute call rate, per message cost and a flat flag fall rate for each phone call made.
Recommendations by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), introduced last year, alleviated this confusion to a small degree by having the telcos state the total cost of a 2-minute call (the length of an average call in Australia) in all advertising for plans.
Many would argue that this recommendation doesn't go far enough, and it is changes, like this one from SpinTel, that will really help Australians make informed choices when committing to new phone plans.
Spintel isn't the only telco to offer plans in minutes, though. MVNO Yatango already offers customisable plans with talk-time described in minutes, and many pre-paid plans, including some from Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, also use blocks of time rather than dollar amounts.
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Joseph Hanlon
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