Telkom reveals FreeMe: 6 rather attractive mobile data plans

Telkom Mobile has announced the launch of its FreeMe mobile plan, offering six tiers of pricing.

The pricing itself seems reasonable, but there are a number of surprising perks as well.

All plans include free SMS messages (limited to 50 per day), zero-rated WhatsApp/Viber/BBM calls (2GB fair usage policy) and free access to over 6000 WiFi hotspots. The two most expensive plans (20GB and unlimited data) also include free calls to any network – albeit limited to only 1500 and 3000 minutes respectively.

The other plans feature free on-network calls only, with a fair usage policy of 3000 minutes.

Interestingly enough, the plans are available on both a contract and prepaid basis.

Pricing?

The plans start at R99 for 1GB of data, followed by 2GB of data for R149, 5GB for R299 and 10GB for R399.

“The top two data packages (20GB and unlimited data) are priced at R599 and R999 respectively,” Telkom Mobile said in a statement.

“We have reviewed our spectrum capacity to allocate it more efficiently to achieve greater coverage and deliver faster data speeds and ultimately drive over the top [OTT – ed] services,” Telkom Consumer CEO Attila Vitai was quoted as saying in a statement.

“This has allowed us to bypass the interconnection fees charged by other networks to offer our customers true value innovation. With zero rated calls over WhatsApp, Viber and BlackBerry BBM — our customers now have access to over 1 billion call options worldwide and over 6000 WiFi hotspots absolutely free.”

The promotion kicks off from 25 July.

It’s not immediately clear whether this is a permanent move. We’ve contacted Telkom for clarification and will update the article when we receive a response.

As for out of bundle rates, you can expect to pay 69c a minute for calls, 30c for texts and 29c per megabyte of data.

Update: Added fair usage policy details.