Cash'n'carry
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday November 11, 1997
CAVEAT caller? Not with the pre-paid Mobile To Go package. Vodafone's new Mobile To Go box may not be an asterisk-free zone. There are still a few of those squashed spiders to make the usual consumer warnings. But none is a fine-print landmine binding you to a contract to make $100 worth of calls a week for the term of your natural life (with a hefty penalty if you dare die before the age of 100).
Instead, Mobile To Go champions a "user-pays" philosophy in the nicest of ways. It's an innovative concept. You wander into a Vodafone dealer and hand over $399 in exchange for a bright red box containing a digital phone handset, SIM card, and one year's connection to Network Vodafone. Slide in the SIM card and you're on the air - for receiving calls, at any rate. That alone is enough for some people.
The kit also includes a Recharge Card for $50 worth of calls. This is issued by TotalTel, the Australian company that developed the pre-paid and recharge technology used in the kit.
Dial a special number on the phone, punch your Recharge Card's number into the handset and your account with TotalTel is opened with $50 credit. The cost of each call you make from then on is debited from this account.
You can check the current balance with a free call. As there's no monthly bill, it's up to the user to keep an eye on the balance (a useful feature would be to dispatch automatically a "warning: low credit" SMS message to the user's phone when their account falls below a pre-set level, such as $5).
When the tank is empty you can top up your credit by visiting any Vodafone store and buying another Recharge Card, either for $50 or $100, and you're back in action. Even without any credit, the phone can receive calls.
Call costs are 99 cents a minute during peak hours and 49c a minute off-peak, with call duration rounded up to the nearest minute.
TotalTel will release a business version of the mobile-to-go kit by early January. The call rates will be a lower - 28c for 30 seconds with a 10c connection fee during peak hours, and 14c for 30 seconds with a 5c connection fee after hours - although the ticket price of the full kit has not yet been decided.
Free voicemail is included in the deal, with the usual message notification via SMS. The only charge is if you use the mobile to retrieve your messages by dialling 121. If you dial directly into your voice mailbox number from the office landline you can minimise that cost and keep your TotalTel credit healthy. (The voicemail box is a separate mobile number from your allocated 014x number and can be accessed by calling the TotalTel service centre).
Not available are cost-extra services such as global roaming, data transmission and SMS transmission from the handset, although you can receive SMS messages sent direct from the handset of any other Vodafone subscriber.
Documentation-wise, the first impression is one of paper overload - five loose sheets or booklets in the phone box and another half-dozen in the plastic CD case housing the SIM and Recharge cards. But the main user's guide and the abbreviated pocket versions are well-written and easy to follow.
Mobile To Go will appeal to those who don't have credit cards - yes, such tribes do exist - but it's a good approach for businesses quickly needing a number of phones for staff to be called rather than making outbound calls.
VodaFone says some 20,000 people are refused a mobile phone each month because they have irregular income or a poor or non-existent credit history. It's also held that prepaid packages will meet strong demand from companies wanting to control their costs.
However, I'd venture that most businesses would prefer centralised company billing direct to their accounts department, with the project costing and control that entails, rather than constantly issuing petty cash vouchers for Recharge Cards and having no idea where the money is going. But the system has appeal in that it's one of the few totally upfront deals, as there are no contracts and almost no hidden charge.
"Almost" means that there is a cost for keeping the connection going after your initial 12 months are up. You can buy a $100 Recharge card to stay online for another six months (with a bonus $10 of calls) or pay $250 for another year's connection and $100 call credit.
Because you've already paid for the handset you could take the alternative route of buying a SIM card from any carrier to stay online in the more conventional manner, although this of course requires you to change your phone number.
Dael Perlov, the marketing director of TotalTel, says he is negotiating with carriers from several countries to make TotalTel's prepaid technology our latest "clever country" export.
For more information on Mobile To Go, phone TotalTel on 1800 501 052.
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald
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