Tune Talk now offers a new way to stay connected for long without the hassle of monthly top ups. Tune Talk customers can get 365 days of credit validity for a small fee of RM38/year. This is good for those looking for a prepaid service with minimal monthly top up commitments.

To activate this, send SET to 1212. It costs RM38 but Tune Talk requires a minimum balance of RM48 before activation. Do note that the RM38 will be deducted as a fee and you won’t be getting any free talktime or SMS. With this 365 days validity activated, it will last exactly 1 year from the date of activation which will be confirmed by SMS. You can check for validity period by calling *133#.

There are other things to look out as well. Any top ups made within the 365 days period will not extend the existing validity period. If you are a heavy user and have been topping up regularly, this isn’t a solution for you. However those that just requiring a line for receiving calls or simply isn’t spending as much as a usual prepaid user, this 365 days validity is worth a try.

For more information, head over to TuneTalk.

It’s a small step forward in the right direction but it’s still a long way off from what an aspiring Australian MVNO has managed to come up with.

Take a look at Savvytel, an award winning MVNO that offer prepaid credits that never expire. They are the first telco (MVNO or not) to provide such value added service.

Savvytel TV Commercial

Everything you need to know about Savvytel

Prepaid credits that last a ridiculously short amount of time is just one of the low-blow tricks used by telcos to increase ARPU of prepaid customers.

With finite credit validity period, customers are forced to top-up to keep their lines active even when they still have unused credit in their SIMs. If it just happens you forget to top-up to keep your credit validity from expiring, your line will be canceled. If you have unused credit, then you lose all your money too.

Imagine there’s just RM1 left when your prepaid expires, your line canceled and your credit forfeited. That might not be a big amount but consider this, if one day 100 prepaid lines are forfeited that’s RM100 of free money to the telcos per day. Multiply that by 30 days in month and the telcos get RM3,000 of free money a month, or RM36,000 free money a year. That’s a lot of money anyway you look at it.

We feel that this is a conservative figure but it’s still reasonable to assume that the local telcos are making a handsome sum from expired prepaid credits. We know the big boys (Celcom, DiGi, Maxis and U Mobile) incur high overheads and might not be able to develop a business model that offers evergreen prepaid validity periods but they could at least make the expired credits recoverable or refundable. It’s only fair.

Though overheads shouldn’t hamper DiGi offshoot Happy and a host of Malaysian MVNOs like Tune Talk and XOXO who have yet to launch their services to consider a business model that is capable of offering prepaid credits that don’t expire.

For now, all we can do is wait and see.