Optus Starts Price War in Prepaid Market

  • All day calls to Optus GSM for $1
  • Free weekends on $3 plan
  • Unlimited access to social networks

It looks like Optus has taken the lead in a price war that will see a range of Pre-Paid offers that provide access value from as little as $1 a day.

Optus Dollar Days allow Optus Pre-Paid customers to set their own limits with a wide range of options depending on the customer’s daily needs.

Options include:

  • For $1 a day, customers can make as many standard national calls and send as many texts as they like to Optus GSM mobile and fixed line customers.
  • For $2 a day, customers can make unlimited standard national calls and texts to Australian GSM mobiles and fixed lines.
  • For $3 per day, customers can make unlimited standard national calls and texts to Australian GSM mobiles and fixed lines and access unlimited mobile internet browsing within Australia, with weekends also thrown in for free.

In addition, all of the Optus Dollar Days offers include unlimited access to popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, eBay, and Foursquare within Australia at no extra cost.

Michael Smith, Managing Director, Optus Consumer said, “For…$14 per week — when a customer opts for a $2 per day plan — Pre-Paid customers will be able to make as many calls and send as many texts as they like to any Australian mobile or landline. And…just $15 per week — based on the $3 per day offer plus free weekends when you pay every day from Monday to Friday — we’ve also thrown in unlimited mobile internet browsing.

“Once a customer has activated their daily offer, we encourage them to take full advantage of it by chatting, texting and browsing as much as they want on that given day. And because we recognise that not all Pre-Paid customers use their phone every day, customers won’t pay anything on the days they don’t use their phone,” Smith said.

With the Optus Dollar Days, Optus Pre-Paid customers will set their own limits with no bills, no long-term contracts and no monthly commitments, says Optus.

It will be interesting to see how VHA and Telstra will have to offer on similar plans.

What do you think of a telco price war? Here's Charlie's opinion