UPDATED: Telstra has finally said goodbye to their 30 second block calls, bringing it in line with many other telcos with new per minute charges.
From March 2011, Telstra will begin charging for mobile, STD and international calls in one minute segments, meaning that regardless of whether your call is 5 seconds or 55 seconds, you will be charged for one full minute.
To be fair to Telstra, we've seen this exact move already from Vodafone / 3 Mobile / Optus and Virgin Mobile, where their new plan announcements like, 'New - Now with $800 of Included Value' have often also come with a less well publicised change in the underlying price charged per minute, or the change to per minute pricing away from 30 second blocks, both meaning that you'd burn through this new cap amount more quickly.
We welcome the increases in included value amounts for customers from mobile carriers every time their announced, but we always recommend doing a full comparison using your calling requirements on our site so that you can see how different headline amounts might equate to value for you as our plan comparisons factor in the call rate and flagfall charges in assessing your usage.
Telstra spokesperson Karina Keisler has claimed that 90% of customers on caps will feel no impact, but has admitted that the average price of a 2.15 minute mobile call on Telstra’s popular $49 Cap Plan will rise from $2.37 to $2.74.
We've analysed this in more detail below and it does seem like the quoted figure of '90% of cap customers feeling no impact' is probably due to the fact that those customers are falling within their included value amounts each month, and not being charged excess, therefore will not feel the increase at a financial level at the end of each month.
In contrast Telstra expects only a 2% rise in costs for month bills of landline phones.
The entire move has been labelled as an attempt to make price comparison easier between Telstra and their competitors, who all already use the questionable 60 second blocks for call charges.
"All competitors charge in 60-second blocks for mobile cap plans," Ms Keisler said.
"The change is to provide alignment across our home phone and mobile charging on cap plans, to standardise pricing and make it easier to compare call costs."
via news.com.au
While an attempt to make pricing comparison easier is certainly appreciated on some level by the WhistleOut team and it is true that this brings them in line with the others, we feel like we we’re doing ok without the help. We standardised our comparisons around the 'calls you use per month' in minutes when we first launched our comparison tool.
Here's some analysis on how the changes will impact your monthly usage:
Let's say you make 200 calls in one month that last between 2 and 3 minutes every time, but the average length of these calls is exactly 2 minutes 30 seconds across the month.
At Per 30 Second Pricing - Calls Under 30 Seconds are Rounded to 30 Seconds
- Approximately 50% of your calls will have ended between 2 minutes and 2 minutes and 30 seconds (which is 5 lots of 30 seconds billing increments - 150 seconds) i.e. 100 calls charged at 2 minutes and 30 seconds - you've used 15,000 seconds or 250 minutes of your included monthly minutes.
- Approximately 50% of your calls will have ended over 30 seconds i.e. over 2 minutes and 30 seconds and under 3 minutes (which equates to 6 lots of 30 seconds billing increments - 180 seconds) i.e. 100 calls charged at 3 Minutes - you've used 18,000 seconds or 300 minutes of your included monthly minutes)
Total Used is 550 minutes
At Per Minute Pricing - Calls Under 1 Minute are Rounded to 1 Minute
100% of your calls that are over 2 minutes, but under 3 minutes, will be charged at 3 minutes i.e. 200 calls charged at 3 Minutes - you've used 36,000 seconds or 600 minutes of your included monthly minutes)
Total Used is 600 minutes.
For a short caller though, the difference is more pronounced. If all your calls are under 1 minute in length in the month, you'd really notice the difference.
At Per 30 Second Pricing
- 50% of calls will have ended between 0 minutes and and 30 seconds (which is 1 lot of 30 seconds billing increments - 30 seconds) i.e. 100 calls charged at 30 seconds - you've used 3,000 seconds or 50 minutes of your included monthly minutes.
- 50% of calls will have ended over 30 seconds and under 1 minute (which equates to 2 lots of 30 seconds billing increments - 60 seconds) i.e. 100 calls charged at 1 Minute - you've used 6,000 seconds or 100 minutes of your included monthly minutes)
Total used is: 150 minutes
At Per Minute Pricing
Total used is: 200 minutes
You use 200 minutes (200 calls * 1 Minute minimum increments) which is a 25% increase.
If you're a Telstra customer, you'll notice the difference if you analyse your bill from March onwards, but if you have a cap plan and you are still within the included value amounts, you won't be hit for this financially as you'll still only need to pay your cap amount of $49.
Alex Angove-Plumb
Digital Content Editor
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