As an immediate response towards the 6% prepaid tax, Tune Talk now offers free call minutes to all networks for top ups of RM10 and above. This gives more value to each top up despite the recent increase. While usual free calls are limited to the same network, Tune Talk’s offer is applicable to all networks.

The extra free calls are rewarded according top up amount and comes with a validity period as well.

RM10 top up – 10 min free calls with 1 day validity
RM20 top up – 20 min free calls with 2 days validity
RM30 top up – 30 min free calls with 3 days validity
RM50 and above – 50 min free calls with 5 days validity

Based on the rate of 16sen/min, that’s RM1.60 worth of calls free for every RM10, which comes out to 16% extra value. So looks like Tune Talk subscribers are getting more as a result of the recent announcement. Will other telcos follow? As mentioned before, the effects of 6% surcharge are expected to be compensated by extra freebies.

For more information, head over to Tune Talk.

	Players on the Field, TuneTalk
	6% Tax Prepaid, free calls, Malaysia Prepaid, Malaysia Prepaid Tax, Mobile Prepaid, Prepaid 6%, Prepaid Tax, Service Tax Act 1975, Tune Talk, Tune Talk Free Calls, TuneTalk

Prepaid users in Malaysia will have to fork out more next week as 6% service tax will be imposed on all reloads as well as new SIM starter packs. This ruling which comes effective on 15th September 2011 was officially announced today. What this means, you would need to pay RM10.60 for a RM10 reload or RM53 for a RM50 reload card.

According to the report, the regulation is not something new as the Service Tax Act 1975 require all telcos to impose tax on all services including prepaid. It was mentioned that all telcos have been absorbing it for its customers since day 1. All telcos will be sending SMS notification to all subscribers on this latest development tomorrow onward.

The obvious impact is that you would need to come out with extra change to pay for top ups. While it is unlikely that we see a major drop of prepaid subscribers, there’s a likelihood that telcos would spark a small price war over this small increase. The very least, telcos will take the opportunity to give rebates to compensate the additional cost.

When credit cards were imposed with RM50 annual tax fee, we’ve seen how banks find creative ways to maintain customer loyalty. Some of them offer RM50 tax waiver which was cleverly disguised as cash rebates or incentives if they perform a minimum spend or balance transfer.

For our telcos, giving free call minutes and SMS is already a norm and that’s something they might practice extensively in this time of increasing prepaid cost. In the end, prepaid subscribers are just looking for the best value and service from the telcos.

If tax is imposed during point of sale, we wonder if this might spark panic buying of reload cards before the 15th September 2011 dateline. Any thoughts from prepaid users? Drop them in the comments below.

	Industry in General
	6% Tax Prepaid, Malaysia Prepaid, Malaysia Prepaid Tax, Mobile Prepaid, Prepaid 6%, Prepaid Tax, Service Tax Act 1975

Tune Talk, Malaysia’s aggressive MVNO prepaid has given its website a whole new revamp. On first glance, it looks pretty refreshing with heaps of red and it runs heavily on flash. While today’s trend where most portals or websites are beginning to switch to non-flash design with javascript implementation, Tune Talk had defied the odds with having a port folio designer style website which navigates both horizontal and vertically.

It looks cool and fun at first but after flicking through the site, it tends to feel a little cluttered. You can use both mouse or keyboard directionary keys to navigate but we were surprised that the mouse scroll wheel doesn’t work with their pages. As Tune Talk subscribers ourselves, we are also having problems locating the self care to check our account details and usage. Anyone managed to find it?

Website aside, Tune Talk is probably the country’s simplest mobile prepaid SIM plan with its fixed rate of 16sen/minute for calls, 5 sen per SMS and the first to offer 5sen per MB for prepaid mobile data.

Now they are giving free sim card with delivery if you purchase one with a minimum top up of RM30.

For more details, visit their newly revamped website here.

	Players on the Field, TuneTalk
	Free Sim Card, Mobile Prepaid, Mobile Prepaid Internet, Tune Talk, Tune Talk Website, TuneTalk

We’ve just discovered that Happy Prepaid, an MVNO service under DiGi has just introduced a prepaid internet offer exclusive for Kota Bharu, Kelantan.

Their starter packs are going at RM15 which comes with 3 days worth of data and validity period. It starts off similar to DiGi prepaid internet at RM2/day but it gets cheaper
with higher value top ups.

For RM10 top up you’ll get 6 days of usage while RM30 top up gives you 18 days which is about RM1.67 per day to stay connected. The fair usage for this plan is capped at maximum 2GB a month which upon exceeding you might be just throttled further to snail crawling speeds. Just like the rest of DiGi prepaid internet offerings, download speed is limited at 384kbps which is adequate for normal surfing but challenging for those who require speedier downloads.

For more information, check out Happy Prepaid Kota Bharu page here.

	Happy, Players on the Field
	DiGi, Happy, Happy Prepaid, Happy Prepaid Internet, kelantan, kota bharu, Mobile Prepaid, Mobile Prepaid Internet

UPDATE: Looks like TuneTalk has bumped their data speed from GPRS to EDGE. This makes it slightly faster with theoritical speeds up to 384kbps. At 5 sen per MB per session, this is the cheapest mobile data right now.

Has Tune Talk gone mad? Now they’ve announced that they are offering the lowest data charge ever at 5 sen per MB.

Don’t expect fast speeds as TuneTalk offers only GPRS which is very much like dial up. But at 5 sen per MB, this is a bargain for your casual facebook and twitting needs. We strongly recommend using Opera browser with their web compression technology for best experience with slow connection.

Formerly Tune Talk charges 10 sen per 10KB. The revised rates now is 5 sen per 1MB which looks like per MB blocks. This means whether you use a mere 10KB or 900KB, you will be charged a minimum of 5 sen per connection you make.

Read up their FAQ here.

	Players on the Field, TuneTalk
	GPRS, mobile data, mobile internet, Mobile Prepaid, Mobile Prepaid Internet, Tune Talk, TuneTalk

DiGi has introduced new Easy Prepaid, a new prepaid plan that offers lower daily internet cap of RM3 and Free Calls & SMS to 3 numbers. It also gives you 10 Free SMS to any network for every RM10 top up made.

The maximum charge of RM3 per day for mobile internet is lower than usual RM5. However we suspect it is the same 384kbps which is too slow for tethering.

New Buddyz is similar to Friends and Family but instead you’ll get free calls and SMS to 3 DiGi numbers that you choose. Free calls however are limited to 60 hours per month. You’ll still get your normal Friends and Family but only 3 instead of the usual six.
Read the rest of this entry »

	DiGi, Players on the Field
	buddyz, DiGi, digi easy prepaid, DiGi mobile internet, DiGi Prepaid, Mobile Prepaid, prepaid mobile internet

Barely a year since launch, Tune Talk has announced its 1 million subscriber base. Quite an impressive feat considering it is a young MVNO. They have even created a cheap looking ad citing the lack of funds as they’ve focus their efforts and expenditure in creating the best low cost mobile operator.

In conjunction with this milestone, TuneTalk is offering FREE calls which we believed is free only within TuneTalk network as announced over twitter. TuneTalk is also running a contest that gives free trip to London for 2 for the highest top up user.

Check out our previous posts on TuneTalk here.

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	Players on the Field, TuneTalk
	free calls, Mobile Prepaid, mvno, Tune Group, TuneTalk, TuneTalk Subscribers