A reader pointed out HERE that Happy has revised its call rates for 2009.

The reader said:

After using Happy for almost a year, I’m extremely annoyed that they changed their rates suddenly on Jan 22, 2009, delusionally advertising them as “new happy deals”. What bullsh*t.

We couldn’t agree more and here are the details.

Happy hinted that the “no-frills” cheapskate mobile service provider was working on new rates.

Happy revealed the revised rates on January 22, and we’re pretty sure many were very disappointed with the crappy “Happier” rates.

Essentially, the flat rate 99sen/45min calls anytime is history. In its place, Happy introduced “Happy Hour”.

From 9am to 5pm, Happy to Happy (on net) calls are 99sen/call for a maximum 45min/call. Whether you will be charged 33sen for every subsequent minute or the call will automatically cut off, we don’t know.

For calls to other networks and calls outside the Happy Hour, you will be charged 99sen for a maximum of 15min, after that you’ll be charged 33sen/min. This rate is called “Happy for All”.

Then there’s “Happy News” where calls below 3min are charged 33sen/call, at the 4th minute we assume you will be charged 99sen/call for a maximum 15min after which the charge drops back to 33sen/min – jusst like in “Happy for All”.

If it all sounds confusing to you that’s because it is. In fact this variable tariff is one of the most confusing and complicated rates in the country!

The table on Happy’s website may look simple but it’s deceptive so don’t be fooled. It’s hiding a lot of key information that’s important to you.

Crucially, the 1sen/second rate is MISSING in the revised tariffs table. This could mean two things. 1) It’s status quo. Meaning calls are sill charged 1sen/second or 2) Or it has been completely abolished. Our guess is it’s the latter.

And then there are the other things. READ below to find out what we’ve gathered from the revised tariffs:

1. By the looks of it, EVERY call will cost you a minimum of 33sen even if it’s for half a second
2. During Happy Hour (9am-5pm), it looks like on net calls are charged a whopping 99sen/call no mater how short the duration. This could be the most expensive call rate ever!
3. During Happy Hour calls, we don’t know whether calls will be charge 33sen/min or will simply be disconnected after 45min.
4. No where does it say if calls are charged in per-second blocks or if it’s in other higher, more expensive blocks (i.e. 15sec/30sec blocks).
5. For “Happy News” calls, we don’t know how much you will charged after the 3rd minute. The table doesn’t state anything about that. We can only assume that after the 3rd minute your call will be charged 99sen/min up to 15min and drops back to 33sen/min after 15mins. Again, we’re assuming this and we can’t be sure because the whole Happy website lack details.

You can check Happy revised rates HERE. Once you’re done, tell us what you think.

Basically when you use Happy, you are at their mercy. They’ve proven that they can change call rates willy nilly. Who knows what else the can and will do.

Our advice, be careful. Better still, stay away from Happy and be happy.

To the reader that shared the info with us: Thanks for your thoughts. We’re not sure if you still want to be behind the pseudonym, let us know if you don’t mind us making your name public, because at SoyaCincau.com we love giving credit where credit is due.

First things first, we’re sorry.

We’ve grossly underestimated the time and commitment it took to deliver a good read on local telco developments on a regular basis. And in the past few months we’ve been bogged down with a lot of other commitments outside this blog that, regrettably, the blog took the back seat.

And even more regrettably, a lot has happened in the industry that we so much want to write, share and discuss with our readers but we can’t because we didn’t have the time.

Once again, we’re sorry.

The good thing about all this is that you learn from you mistakes and we’ve definitely learned our. This new year we’re all pumped up to give you the inside scoops, tips and opinions inside the telco industry.

Our regular readers can expect regular updates from us. For the first timers here, welcome and please fill us in if there’s anything about the industry that you’d like us to talk or find out more about.

We know it’s a bit of a stretch but you’ll know it’s the thought that counts. So we’re wishing everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! and to our Chinese friends and readers, have a prosperous year of the Ox.

SoyaCincau.com is back!

After Maxis launched its Hotlink 365, DiGi has responded with its Reload Once, Stay Connected for ONE Year offer for a limited time period between 23rd July – 31st August 2008.

DiGi’s offer is simple and gives more value to its customers as it only requires a RM100 usable reload. This means every single sen spent for validity is actual credit or talk time that subscribers can use.

On Hotlink 365, its subscribers are required to pay a yearly fee of RM33 which is similar to paying access fee which subscriber can’t utilise.  On top of the RM33 fee, they would need to top up RM30 within the first 6 months of activation.

Comparison
Hotlink:
Spend RM63, RM30 usable
1. RM33 fee
2. RM30 top up (within 6 months)

DiGi:
Spend RM100, RM100 usable
1. RM100 top up

Which is the lowest to maintain?
Maxis and DiGi has step up to offer 1 year validity, but which one is the lowest to maintain? Strangely the answer is neither of them.

If you’ve read our review on Happy earlier on, you will noticed that Happy is still the lowest prepaid plan to maintain.

60 days credit validity regardless of top up amount
Top up more to stay on more? Not anymore. With Happy any credit from a minimum of RM5 will give you 60 days credit validity. To stay active for a full year, one would only need to top up RM5 every 2 months (approx 60 days) x 6 times which is only RM30 per year. With the same amount on other prepaids, you’d get around a month validity. This makes Happy the lowest prepaid to maintain in terms of top-up.

Happy:
Spend RM5x6, RM30 usable
1. RM5 top up ( Month 1-2 )
2. RM5 top up ( Month 3-4 )
3. RM5 top up ( Month 5-6 )
4. RM5 top up ( Month 7-8 )
5. RM5 top up ( Month 9-10 )
6. RM5 top up ( Month 11-12 )

There you have it! Happy costs only RM30 per year to maintain and you get RM30 usable credit. The only catch is that you have to top up the minimum RM5 every 2 months which could be more troublesome than DiGi’s and Hotlink one-off offering. Overall it depends on consumer usage to decide which prepaid is more suitable. We are merely just pointing out which offers the longest validity with the lowest price.

Conclusion
DiGi’s offering is to be commended as it scretches the validity longer without imposing access fees like Hotlink. However we are also hoping that DiGi will make this as a permanent feature rather than a limited time offer.

Apparently it was reported that MCMC has announced that telcos should offer prepaid plans with atleast 180 days validity period. To date, it seems that Hotlink is the only one with a permanent offer. We will see how would Celcom and U Mobile would react to this new regulation.

Celcom has been very quite lately, as they have yet to respond in terms of new prepaid or postpaid offering.

Links
DiGi: Reload Once, Stay Connected for ONE YEAR
DiGi’s new reload promotion
DiGi starts offering 365 Days Validity for RM100 top up?

Happy, a no-frills prepaid on DiGi’s network has finally introduced direct debit payment thru Maybank2u. Previously Happy accepts only credit card transactions which limits its online subscription audience. Currently, it is estimated that there are 2.7 million credit card holders in Malaysia which is equivalent to only 10% of the population. With this new payment channel, we believe they are now capable to acquiring a larger subscriber base.

At the same time, Happy has also spread its wings about a week ago to Sabah! It was reported that they have been organising roadshows at strategic locations in Kota Kinabalu. As MNP is drawing near, it is obvious that Happy needs to spread its presence around Malaysia in other to secure its footprint in the prepaid segment.

Happy was launched sometime in December 2007 and it had created some buzz in the telco industry.

Who is this Happy? By now, most of you should have seen its multi coloured advertisements on TV, Internet and newspaper. While Happy is a part of DiGi, it tries to disassociates itself from the big yellow where its advertisements and promotional materials do not carry the DiGi brand. Even their sales channel are limited to their website and selected Giant hypermarkets. We’re wondering why they are not making use of DiGi’s already established dealer channels nationwide.

It is only after you looked closely, you will know that Happy comes from DiGi. In fact, Morten Lundal, the former CEO of DiGi said that Happy is formed by a rebel group in DiGi’s headquarters itself.

The next question is why did they create Happy when DiGi is already a strong prepaid-centric brand? It could be possible that Happy is a limited time experiment by DiGi. In an event where the outcome is not desirable, they could easily pull the plug on Happy without affecting DiGi as a whole.

So what’s the deal with Happy?

The Happy Details

1 sen per second to all networks (per second billing)
A first in Malaysia, Happy offers per second billing with 1sen/sec. While other celco usually charge based on 30-second blocks, Happy uses a more accurate billing structure where it calculates down to the exact call duration in seconds. This would mean, you’ll only need to pay exactly what you use, not the minimum billing block imposed by others. Best of all, it is the same rate to all networks nationwide at any time.

Calls are capped at 99sen. (Maximum of 45 minutes per call)
A big surprise from Happy is that 99sen is the maximum you pay for a single call. Each call you make however is limited to a maximum of 45 minutes where it will be automatically disconnected. If you want to talk longer then 45 minutes, just call back the person you were talking to and talk for another 45 minutes. With Happy rates, this would translate to only 2.2sen/min for a 45 minute call. That can be considered as the cheapest rate in the country!

10 sen per SMS to all networks
Send SMS nationwide regardless of networks for just a one cheap rate of 10sen.

60 days credit validity regardless of top up amount
Top up more to stay on more? Not anymore. With Happy any credit from a minimum of RM5 will give you 60 days credit validity. To stay active for a full year, one would only need to top up RM5 every 2 months (approx 60 days) x 6 times which is only RM30 per year. With the same amount on other prepaids, you’d get around a month validity. This makes Happy the lowest prepaid to maintain in terms of top-up.

So far so good, but there must be a catch right?
You bet your happy faces there is!

The Not so Happy Details

60 sen per minute
Let’s not kid ourselves. How often do we make 45 minute calls? Most calls made on a daily basis are quite short, ranging from few seconds to few minutes. At the rate of 1sen/sec, this is equivalent to 60sen/min compared to other prepaids offering around 30-50sen/min. To enjoy say 30sen/min or cheaper from Happy, you’d have to talk for over 3 minutes (3 minute 18 seconds to be exact). In short, if you often make short calls, Happy would be expensive, much more expensive.

Expensive data
Data activation costs RM2 which is reasonable enough but the data charge is too expensive considering its just running on EDGE. On Happy the data rate is charged at 50sen/10KB, when others charge around 10sen/KB . That means on Happy you pay RM50 per MB! You’re better off surfing at a cyber cafe plus Happy’s data service is not even 3G!

Customer service comes with a price
RM2 to be exact. This part is really baffling to me, while others offer free customer service or charge calls to CS at normal call rate, Happy charges RM2/call to calling customer service! In addition, the customer service hotline at 014-3333800 is open from 8AM-8PM from Mon-Sat only. This is not going to make anyone happy, especially to a user who really needs customer support assistance at a critical time.Also, have you noticed that Happy does not have any physical customer service outlets that you can walk-in to? And, DiGi Service Centres will not service customers who are on Happy (which is really weird considering Happy is loosely linked to DiGi). This means if you have any issues that you can’t solve, the RM2 hotline is the only immediate channel.

DiGi credit transfer accepted but no validity extension
What this means is that you can use DiGi top-ups to replenish credits in your Happy prepaid account. The good thing: Happy accepts credit transfers from existing DiGi customers for added credit. The bad: such credit transfer does NOT increase your validity credit. To increase validity, you would need to get a Happy top up instead.

Short inactive period before line termination
While most prepaid has a minimum 30 days inactive period before being terminated, a Happy prepaid will be terminated after 7 days of inactive period. That means 7 days after your credit validity expires your line is gone! You lose your number and everything. This is quite risky if one has forgotten to top up on time.

Premium rates to call 1300/1800 etc.
Calls to 1300/1800 numbers are charged at RM1/minute. Directory assistance 103 is charged at a whooping RM2/minute! We wonder what is the rational for charging premium for assistance. With Happy its expensive to get assistance. Its cheaper to call your friend and get him to call assistance for you.At least you can be thankful that calls to emergency services like 999 are still free.

Thoughts of Happy
While being the new prepaid player in the market, we won’t recommend you from making the switch just yet. The Happy deal may look cheap on the surface but with a call rate of 60sen/minute for short calls, it can be considered as one of the most expensive prepaid plans in the market for short callers.

At the same time, we do not view Happy as a direct prepaid competitor but instead a 2nd SIM card. It’s perfect for those love birds who talk for hours on end about nothing or those who regularly make calls over 3 minutes. As we mentioned before, talking the full 45min stretch will cost you a paltry 2.2sen/minute. This is way cheaper than any prepaid rate we know of in the country (including whatever friends and family or Active10 rate). In fact, we think that this would be the biggest threat to calling cards such as iTalk or RingRing card for domestic calls.

The top up validity of 60 days regardless of amount is a plus point for those who rarely use up their credits. As mentioned earlier, on Happy, you only need a minimum of RM30 top up just to keep your line active for a full year, again the cheapest of any prepaid plan by far. A word of caution though, the trade off is the shorter 7 days inactive period before your line is terminated and you loose your Happy number.

Bottom line, whether it is applicable to you depends greatly on your call usage and whether you call customer service and directory services often.

If you make long calls, never call customer service or directory services and don’t mind the fact that there’s no proper store you can walk in to to get Happy then perhaps this Happy plan is for you.

So how long will Happy stay? It is still unclear on the future direction of this new celco. With DiGi being able to get its hands on a 3G license, its interesting to see how Happy can benefit.