Mobile operators revamp price plans with focus on data traffic

Mobile internet is the star of the newly released fall price plans from operators Orange Romania and Cosmote Romania, which last week announced that they have restructured and enriched their offers.

By Otilia Haraga

Orange has introduced mobile internet in all its post-pay and prepay deals. The firm’s TV customers can now watch TV channels as well as video-on-demand via the Orange TV Go application for Android and iOS phones and tablets.

Furthermore, customers who go on the company’s Dolphin, Kangaroo, Tiger or Panther plan will also get the antivirus application from Bitdefender, which is available for Android handsets. The app protects users’ devices against viruses, when they surf on the internet. From September 18, prepay card users also get data traffic included and will be able to use mobile internet at 4G speeds.

The Orange Business Open plan for SMEs includes a number of units that can be used for national and international calls, text messages, Orange Cloud storage space, phone insurance, Orange Antivirus and the Backup kit service. All the Business Open plans include data traffic at speeds of up to75 Mbps for download and 37.5 Mbps for upload.

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Orange will also release new 4G compatible smartphones this fall: the Orange Yumo, Nokia Lumia 625, Blackberry Q5, Samsung Galaxy S III 4G and Samsung Galaxy Note 3. The Orange Zali and Samsung Galaxy Trend Lite models will be available exclusively in the company stores. The Nokia Lumia 520, the first handset with Windows in the best-deal offer, and the 4G tablet Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 complete the range.

Meanwhile, telecom operator Cosmote Romania has announced it has simplified its postpaid deals. The Cosmote Free postpaid portfolio offers unlimited internet, with the speed decreasing after consumption of a certain amount of traffic, and unlimited voice communication, on the net and to Romtelecom fixed lines, unlimited on net texts, and national/international zone 1 minutes.

“From today, our customers can benefit from unlimited on net and mobile data communication, as well as the rollover of national minutes – based on the Free S tariff plan,” said Mathias Hanel, chief commercial officer of Cosmote Romania.

The company offers three plans: the Free S, with recommended traffic of 100 MB, for EUR 8.8, Free M with recommended traffic of 250 MB, for EUR 15 and Free L, with recommended  1GB of included traffic for EUR 31.

In combination with the new price plans, Cosmote provides deals for smartphones from RON 1. In addition, customers may combine the handset subsidies when taking out two or more plans, while those who already have a handset and do not wish to use the handset subsidy can take advantage of other special offers.

Positioning itself as a smartphone centric-operator, Cosmote’s new portfolio includes extras such as various mobile apps, depending on the price plan.­

otilia.haraga@business-review.ro