New U Mobile prepaid plan to offer unlimited data for social media

• Subscribers will get 300 minutes of free calls every month to U Mobile numbers
• Bullish on better network performance after completion of upgrade by mid-2017

MALAYSIAN telco U Mobile has introduced its new Unlimited Power Prepaid plan that should satisfy the appetites of social media-hungry users with its newly introduced App Onz service.

App Onz offers unlimited data for social media applications like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, so users are able to share, upload, stream and view their posts without having to worry about running over their data quota.

Its chief marketing officer Jasmine Lee said the introduction of the plan was timely as it was about time its prepaid starter pack was due for a revamp.

“In today’s digital age, people have a lot to share on their social media platforms be it photos or videos. Data is a commodity today, so it is inevitable for mobile operators to go down this path as more people subscribe to our data packages,” she said at the launch in Kuala Lumpur.

“Admittedly, browsing on social media does not consume a lot of data, so with consumption being so low we don’t see a point in limiting our users should they want to share video and high definition content,” Lee stated.

App Onz follows closely after U Mobile’s series of unlimited offerings such as its Video-Onz , Music-Onz and Game-Onz plans introduced last year, offering free video and music streaming and gaming via WiFi tethering.

Unlimited Power Prepaid subscribers will get 300 minutes of free calls to all U Mobile numbers, every month. The telco also said that the new plan features one of the lowest voice call rates to all networks at just 12 sen/ 30 sec.

According to U Mobile, the new prepaid package will be available for purchase from Feb 17 with the starter pack costing RM8.50. Customers just need to perform a one-time Top Up of minimum RM10 to activate the service.

The package comes bundled with RM5 of credit and 200MB of high-speed data that is valid for 10 days.

Existing U Mobile prepaid customers can switch for free to the new Unlimited Power prepaid package by dialling *118*6*2*3#.  App Onz will also be available for free to U Mobile’s postpaid customers on its Hero Postpaid (U28, P50, P70 and P98), iPlans, Ultimate Device Plans and Broadband Plans.

Picking up on speed

Though U Mobile’s unlimited data packages have attracted more subscribers to its network, a Network Performance Report by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) conducted last year showed that U Mobile's network scored poorly.

In the report, it was stated average download speeds netting just 11.74Mbits/s, the lowest among the big four telcos.  U Mobile's network recorded the highest packet loss rate of 3.95% compared to other telcos.

Lee said in response to the report that during the period of time when MCMC conducted the study, which was between January to November 2016, U Mobile was in the midst of upgrading its network which resulted in service disruptions.

She said that with the upgrade to offer its services in multi-band and the allocation of 1800MHz in Jan 2017 and 900MHz spectrum by July 2017, the telco’s service quality would improve.

"U Mobile is focused on providing the best data experience for our customers. We expect to see a big change in the rankings should the study be conducted this year once our network upgrades are completed," she said.

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