Telstra follows up Prepaid Max revamp with improvements to its postpaid plans
Some more news from Telstra — this time, the telco targets its postpaid plans, refreshing them starting from June 25. Earlier in the year, Telstra refreshed its Prepaid Max plan, increasing the amount of data included, adding a data bank, and more. That announcement also came with several other changes to the entire Telstra lineup to make for a more competitive package.
This time, Telstra focuses on postpaid plans, revamping their offerings with the following improvements:
- Customers can add a device to month-to-month plans with no lock-in contracts;
- Customers don’t get charged for excess data within Australia;
- Customers can now pay off a device over a 24 or 36 month span;
- A range of entertainment, accessories and service extras can now be used to personalize plans;
- Customers can now change plans once a month. If a Customer leaves, all they have to do is pay for their device or accessories in full.
Australians have been known to rank data among the most important factors to be considered when valuing a phone plan. A 2016 ranking of global data usage places Australia at number two, consuming an average of 6.28GB per mobile broadband subscription per month.
Australia ranked second in the world in data consumption in 2016. Source.
Today, the Australian data demand is even higher. Even more so, telco’s answers to increased data demands is more of an answer to Australians’ demand for fairness.
As a result, telcos have increased data inclusions consistently over the years in an effort to go with the trend.
Today’s Telstra postpaid plans revamp is the telco’s latest answer to what is fair.
Add a phone to month-to-month plans and forget about excess data charges
Telstra’s attempts at fairness here are in line with Vodafone’s last year revamp. Vodafone allows customers to bring their own phone for SIM only plans, while eliminating excess data charges by throttling down data speeds to 1.5Mbps when your data allowance is exhausted.
Telstra introduces a similar deal with its postpaid plans revamp. The telco will now allow customers to add a device to postpaid month-to-month plans with no lock-in contract, all while eliminating excess data charges. Like Vodafone, Telstra throttles speeds down to 1.5Mbps whenever your data allowance is exhausted.
The elimination of excess data charges was part of Telstra’s T22 strategy, which aims to simplify plans and improve flexibility. The telco adopted the idea of no excess data charges last year with its ‘Peace of Mind Data’ scheme that essentially means unlimited data.
Fairness and flexibility
Australians rank fair treatment higher than innovation and customer service where phone companies are concerned. However, fair treatment is a broad phrase that can be interpreted a number of ways, both subjectively and objectively.
For Australians, eliminating excess data charges would be considered a fair deal. Also, data bank features would also be considered fair, because it allows the storage of unused data. All in all, data seems to be a focal point for fairness in Australia, and this comes as no surprise given the country’s data consumption rates, which have led to telcos’ consistent data inclusions increases.
As data demands increase, telco’s increase the amount of data included in plans. Source.
Telstra’s revamp of its Prepaid Max plans earlier in the year addressed these fairness issues. This latest postpaid plan revamp does the same, and also gives customers increased flexibility with their plans.
With this revamp, Telstra address the issue of flexibility by giving its customers more choice:
- Customers will now be allowed to add devices to month-to-month plans.
- Devices can now be paid off either within 24 months or 36 months.
- Customers can now also personalize their plans by adding from Telstra’s range of entertainment, accessories and service extras.
- Finally, customers will now be allowed to change plans once a month, and in the event there’s a cancellation, the customer simply pays for the device/accessories in full.
- In the vein of giving customers even more choices, Telstra now has a range of 5G devices to choose from, to give customers in select areas the 5G experience.
The range of choice evident in these changes also addresses fairness, not just flexibility. But then again, the broad nature of the phrase ‘fair treatment’ can be said to include flexibility/choice as one of its factors. Telstra recognizes the need to stay competitive in an increasingly large Australian telco market, and has decided to answer with fairer and simpler plans in accordance with its T22 strategy.
Final words
With increasing competition in Australia’s telco market, Telstra continues to implement its T22 strategy by revamping and simplifying its plans to improve on fairness and flexibility. The telco recognizes that consumers are shaping the telco industry, and has even refreshed its Prepaid Max plans and its reward program as a response.
This latest round focuses on postpaid plans, eliminating excess data charges and allowing customers to add their device to month-to-month plans with no lock-in contracts. This also reinforces the idea that today’s consumers are holding on to their devices longer than usual as it allows them add those devices to its postpaid plans. The fairness and flexibility won’t stop there, however, as the telco will now allow plans to be changed once a month, allow personalization of plans, and the option to pay off devices in 24 or 36 months.