2degrees innovate with shared data plans

A few months back, NZ's newest and most innovative mobile carrier, 2degrees, asked for suggestions for plans and products on their Facebook page. I tend to avoid service providers' major social media avenues simply because the average user comment in such places tends to be loud, uninformed, unaware of basic business practices, and thus annoying to read. I braved these murky waters and gave them a lengthy tongue-in-cheek comment about how great shared data bundles would be. They told me to wait and see. I have, and from today's reports, that was well worth doing.

The History

Shared data bundles have been the dream for quite some years. The old model, both locally and in most countries abroad, has been the bog standard [x] many units of [y] product per [z] time period - e.g. 100 minutes per month. These would last from one billing date to the next, and if they went unused, would simply expire - or be snatched away by a giant hand representing the greed of the competition, as one of 2degrees' more well known marketing campaigns put it. For many years, the New Zealand mobile market stagnated thanks to the duopoly of Vodafone and Telecom NZ, who, having completely uninteroperable mobile networks (GSM and CDMA, respectively - shifting from one carrier to the other meant one needed to buy a new phone) and a bias towards on-net pricing (Cheaper to call/text friends on the same network, vastly more expensive to call/text the other - a cheap and nasty form of promoting loyalty amongst price-conscious peer groups), had little concern for customer churn and thus no reason to disrupt their cushy pricing models with petty concerns like 'competitive pricing'.

2degrees shook this up in several ways, one of which was the introduction of roll-over minutes for on-account customers - if bundled minutes go unused, they will stay valid for up to one year. This was not an entirely new concept, but it was certainly new on the NZ market. I find it a proposition that adds a lot of value, as I make few calls, but tend to talk for longer periods of time when I do. They also have a bonus minute structure that is effectively the same as the standard expiring monthly plans offered by the other two, but being billed as a 'bonus' rather than sold as a fundamental part of the plan, the consumer perception is more favourable. Data and texting, on the other hand, have - thus far - expired at the end of the month (With the exception of some larger on-net data bundles that are valid for multiple months - these are pitched as an alternative to fixed-line broadband services).

Enter the current proposition

As NBR reported today, 2degrees have introduced the option to share data bundles across multiple devices. What interests me, here, is both the reasonable pricing and the billing structure. A central on-account plan is required (These start from $29NZ/month), and one tacks on a monthly fee of $5.00 plus an additional dollar for every connected SIM (Or 'additional line' as these are known on the US market. I have always found the notion of 'lines' to be a hilarious misnomer in a wireless, mobile market). The kicker here is that these other connections can be either on-account or prepaid/pay-as-you-go, and as such can benefit from the existing, already competitive pricing that 2degrees offers, and will have the fall-back of the shared data pool once any subscribed data packages have been used.

To illustrate, here's a hypothetical use-case scenario based on my understanding of the plan's functionality: Jill has an on-account plan with 3GB of data. Her partner Jack has a prepaid plan with 300MB of data that's been connected to Jill's account through this data-sharing option. As such, Jill pays an extra $5.00 for the connection plus $1 to link Jack's SIM/month, and when Jack's 300MB runs out, he can jump on to Jill's 3GB, and away they merrily go. I can see this being phenomenally useful, and pioneering the linking of multiple family members' services in ways the NZ market has very rarely seen (Telecom have offered basic linking of mobiles to home phone & broadband accounts for years, but their implementation is archaic in the current market). It also offers a serious selling point for 3G tablets - $12/year to have the option of using data on additional devices whenever necessary? Brilliant. No need to pay for an entry-level data plan for this second device, which have traditionally been priced at upwards of $20/month.

In my case, I thoroughly intend to link my partner's prepay connection as soon as I can, not least because 2degrees have offered a sign-up promo for the service of six months' free access and a bonus of 1GB of shared data. One does not complain, and I look forward to seeing the responses from Telecom and Vodafone.

-Article written by Nik "onslaught86" Turner