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However, when a telco lowers one of its prices to a level that’s still four times higher than one of its co-opetitors, I don’t think advising the media is such a good idea, aside from the fact that the media will then duly advise its readers accordingly if the news is newsworthy.
And yes, charging four times the price of a competitors’ price is definitely worth letting readers know about, simply so they can be as well informed as they can be in today’s hypercompetitive world.
So, what’s the new price that Virgin Mobile is charging its post-paid customers for excess data usage?
AUD 20.5c per megabyte, billed per kilobyte.
Amaysim’s charge for its pre-paid and post-paid customers for excess data? AUD 5c per megabyte, although this is billed in 1MB increments.
Despite the difference between kilobyte and megabyte billing, Virgin Mobile is still charging you more than four times the per-megabyte price, at a cost of AUD $209.92 per gigabyte (1024 megabytes x 0.205). That's a tad higher than the AUD $9.95 per gigabyte charged by companies like Amaysim when you pre-pay for an additional gig of data.
What is likely still shocking is the claim that Virgin Mobile “now offers one of the lowest rates in the market”, something that presumably means the Optuses, Vodafones and Telstras of the Australian telco space are charging even higher excess data rates.
So, given Virgin Mobile’s request that “if you are filling any stories that relate to mobile data please ensure your pricing is now reflective of this rate change”, we have now done just that.
It’s also a warning: if you’re the kind of user that is likely to regularly go over your data limit, please consider either upping your data plan, or get yourself an inexpensive Wi-Fi hotspot, so that excess data charges are charges you’ll never be paying an excess for.
