The month of April have been a very busy one for all telcos in Malaysia. Every major player in the local telco business has announced either new plans or revamped older ones over the course of the past four weeks. Seeing as the amount of plans that were introduced throughout the month can be rather overwhelming, we will be breaking down all current postpaid plans that Celcom, Digi, Maxis and U Mobile are providing.
Celcom
Let’s start off this piece with the boys in blue, Celcom. Celcom has been busy revamping its postpaid plan, and the result of said revamp shows itself in the brand new FIRST plans: FIRST Blue, FIRST Gold and FIRST Platinum.
As the chart shows, Celcom is offering some rather sweet perks if you’re subscribed to the FIRST Gold and FIRST Platinum plan by way of having unlimited calls and SMS to all networks in the country. For data, Celcom is allocating 4GB, 10GB and 18GB of data for its Blue, Gold and Platinum plan respectively. Curiously, Celcom has decided to split up its data allocation into standard data and weekend-only data. This weekend-only data allocation is then split up evenly among the four weekends that a month has. If that month has a fifth weekend, Celcom will provide said weekend with free data.
As for perks, all FIRST postpaid plans will receive Free Yonder Music for a varying amount of time. FIRST Platinum however, gets more than just Yonder Music as its subscribers will also receive a free 12 month subscription to iflix as well as free access to Zipit Chat. The perks don’t stop there, as FIRST Platinum subscribers will also get priority customer service, a one-time access into Malaysia Airline’s Golden Lounge, as well as their preferred number choice. Needless to say, FIRST Platinum is the blue telco’s premier service.
Digi
Digi’s lineup of postpaid plans is the most confusing out of all the other telcos, mainly because their postpaid plans are split into two categories: ‘More Calls & SMS’ and ‘More Internet’.
Digi Postpaid More Calls & SMS
In essence, choosing Digi means that you’re going to need to choose between data and calls/SMS. With the More Calls & SMS plan, you’ll get a certain amount of free calls and SMS if you’re on a lower-tier subscription, with the higher-tier subscriptions having unlimited free calls and SMS to all networks. The trade-off for this plan is that the data allocation isn’t as high as its More Internet counterpart.
Digi Postpaid More Internet
For the More Internet plans, you’ll get a larger Internet quota and more data to carry over to the following month in the event that you didn’t exhaust your data quota. The trade-off for this is that you will not receive free talk time or SMS. On top of that, you have a limited amount of talk time and SMS.
Simply put, those who tend to focus more all calls and texting should opt for the More Calls & SMS plans. For those who consume data on a regular basis, the More Internet plans are the better option. Both plans would net you perks such as free access to WhatsApp, WeChat, Capture, Music Freedom and iflix depending on your plan’s tier.
Maxis
Maxis had a PR disaster earlier in the month that resulted in them having to do some quick damage control before revamping their entire MaxisONE Plan. Well, after haemorrhaging customers for two weeks, the green telco has revealed the new MaxisONE Plan, now with even more data!
Unique to the MaxisONE plans are the inclusion of something called a DataPool, which allows two or more lines to share a pooled data allocation. What this means is that whenever someone signs up for a supplementary line, the main line is able to share its data allocation with the supplementary line. To make things even better, the main line will receive 5GB of extra data into its DataPool for every supplementary line that it has. The limit to the amount of supplementary lines one can have is determined by the MaxisONE plan’s tier, but a maximum of four supplementary lines can be had, which gives the DataPool an additional 20GB of data to use. Said DataPool is also applicable for international roaming purposes.
As for the perks of the MaxisONE plans, subscribers will receive 5GB of data for free every month for video-on-demand purposes such as iflix, Viu, Eros and Hopster. For those who are subbed to MaxisONE Plan 128 and above, users will get an additional 15GB per month for music streaming on Spotify.
U Mobile
Ah yes, U Mobile, the ‘Disruptor’, the one who started off the so-called ‘Telco Wars’. The telco in orange has been making huge waves in the postpaid market thanks to a combination of affordability, and its habit of giving out data like it’s free candy. Whatever the case, when it comes to postpaid for U Mobile, we’re talking about the Hero Postpaid plans.
U Mobile Postpaid Plans
Much like Maxis, U Mobile’s postpaid plans do come with a supplementary line as well. The Hero Plus Member Line is rather similar to Maxis’ offering in that you can add an additional amount of cash to get a second line. Unlike Maxis though, is that the cost of opening a supplementary line depends on your pre-existing postpaid plan. In short, the pricing is a bit more flexible than Maxis’ fix rate of RM 48 per line.
U Mobile Member Line
For perks, those who subscribe to the U Mobile postpaid plans will gain access to free video streaming via Video-Onz. Video-Onz is basically additional data that is allocated solely for video streaming, perfect for those who frequent YouTube and the likes while on the move. As always, your postpaid plans dictate how much additional data you’ll receive for Video-Onz, with the P70 plan getting unlimited video streaming.
In Conclusion
And that is almost all of the postpaid plans that our four major telcos are providing as we enter the month of May. It is highly likely that all of these plans will be revamped or even changed outright as all telcos try to outdo one another. Also, there is the fact that another new telco will be making its way to the market soon. Will webe be able to do a U Mobile and shake up the market even further? Only time will tell. At the end of the day, the one that stands to benefit the most from this telco competition will be the customers.
