Technology news and Jobs 
VIRTUALISATION Is the force with 3 Mobile's new $19 cap?
VIRTUALISATION Is the force with 3 Mobile's new $19 cap? | Is the force with 3 Mobile's new $19 cap? |
|
| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Thursday, 19 February 2009 | |
|
Page 1 of 2   
Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
I’m personally still on one of those original plans (the family and friends plan, from memory), paying 15c per 30 seconds, but for consumers getting a new capped plan today, the days of 15c per 30 seconds are but a memory for most. There may well be some plans out there that still offer these prices – if anyone reading this knows of any, let us all know! Nowadays, you’ll pay at least double that, meaning your “cap” gets chewed up faster – but it’s something that all telcos have done to increase the “ARPU” (average revenue per user) they get from each customer. What it means is that consumers need to carefully weigh up the plans on offer, not just on the monthly cap price, but the rate at which the included value is used up, along with whatever other benefits are on offer. This can make comparing caps between companies difficult, but telcos don’t exist to make life easier for you, no matter what the advertising jingles from some telcos might claim. Now, this article isn’t meant to be an attack on caps and how they’re priced, it’s simply an observation of what once was, and what is now. And what is now is a new $19 cap from 3 Mobile, which includes “$140 worth of total value each month”, broken down as “$70 worth of calls, SMS and more (up to $20 can be used on international calls), $70 of free talk on 3 to 3 plus a range of unlimited News, Sport or Fun content.” This cap is chewed up at a rate of 45c per 30 seconds along with a 35c flagfall, with these kind of higher rates normal at the lower end of the monthly cap scale. You can see more details of this cap's charges here. There’s also the opportunity to “add a $5 monthly [email] pack” for consumers to “get their hands on unlimited email and IM on applications including Yahoo, Gmail and Google to use in 3’s Broadband Zones.” So, what's with all this "the force" business, anyway? There must be some kind of contrived connection. Well, there sure is - it's on page 2, please read on! |
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
