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Telecommunications Optus launches big caps for small businesses
Telecommunications Optus launches big caps for small businesses | Optus launches big caps for small businesses |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 26 August 2008 | |
  
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Thee voice plans range from $149 per month for two or three users offering $600 worth of calls, and $750 worth of equipment credit to $2999 per month for up to 75 users with $15,000 worth of calls, and $15,000 worth of equipment credits on a 24 year contract. The number of users under any plan need not be fixed for the duration of the contract, users can be added or removed within the limits of the plan at any time. Businesses that sign up to one of these 'Total Mobile Business Cap' plans can choose from three 'Total Business Data Cap' plans for 2-3, 2-7, 0r 2-12 users. These are charged, respectively, at $79, $199 and $329 per month and including 4GB, 10GB or 15GB of data and $600, $14000 or $24000 worth of equipment credit. Excess data charges on all plans are charged at 15 cents per megabyte ($150 per GB). The Optus brochure says that: "from month to month it is difficult to anticipate how much your mobile usage or wireless broadband downloads will fluctuate. Often you are charged when you exceed the included value cap on one service, even though excess value remains unused on another. With Total Business Cap, you can control your costs by sharing your set of monthly included value across multiple services on the same account." However the corollary of this difficulty of anticipation is that usage could be higher than anticipated, with dire consequences. For example the large data plan with 12 users connected would give each just 1.25GB per month, not much at all. Should they all use an extra 1GB each, the business would be hit with an excess data charge for that month of $1800. The Optus brochure says: "You are able to obtain an indication of your megabyte usage via the client application or on the on-line usage feature in member services. If you are using mobile data on Mobile as Modem or Windows Mobile Email, you will not be able to view your Optus Zoo / WAP usage in the on-line usage features in member services or prior to receiving your monthly bill." We're not sure whether this means that individual users can see the aggregate data usage, or only their own. If the latter, it would seem that an administrator/manager would need to be pretty vigilant to keep data usage below the cap. We're waiting on a reply from Optus and will update this article when it becomes available. |
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