Mobile operators have different products to meet the requirements of most of their customer base niches. There are those who send a lot of text messages, others make calls amounting to tens of minutes in each day, others call and send SMS heavily concurrently, while others do not care about calls at all because their lives revolve around the Internet – meaning they can only relate to data bundles. In the same line of thought are corporates and SMEs that depend on connectivity options (that we discussed here, here and here) and telephone services to perform their daily duties.
Telkom Kenya has a plan for most of the aforementioned groups. For instance, mixed users who are make calls, send texts messages and spend some time on the interwebs checking memes, Holla Bundles will serve them well. Their execution is similar to that of Safaricom’s FLEX Bundles, but the difference is that Holla bundles are limited to specific number of services. For example, Holla Plus that goes for KES 19 includes unlimited Telkom to Telkom calls and SMS, 50 MB of data (20 MB + FREE 30 MB) – all in a 24 hour window. In comparison, Safaricom’s FLEX does not employ such allocation because points are deducted based on general usage.
On the other hand, phone-clutching zombies who do not care about free minutes and unlimited SMS are taken care of by Telkom Kenya’s appealing data plans and small gift for users in 4G zones (that ends in August 31), in addition to incentives such Free WhatsApp.
For purposes of this piece, we will look into Telkom Kenya’s PostPay plans and whether they have a competitive edge over rivals like Safaricom (that buried its PostPay plan, unless you can make compromises with Advantage Plus) and Airtel. Worth noting is that Telkom’s PostPay plans are ‘flexible and convenient’ in what the telecommunications company calls iControl. In essence, iControl incorporates a hybrid system that allows users to purchase PostPay or PrePay bundles once their allocation is exhausted. Plans can cost as little as KES 1000 to KES 100,000. Another feature is that regardless of the plan selected, all PostPay roaming services use standard PrePay rates.
Telkom Kenya has the following PostPay offers:
- For individuals
- Ongea, which has two packages that cost KES 1,000 and KES 3,000. In either case, a user gets on-net calls for KES 2, off-net calls for KES 3 and KES 3 for a megabyte of data.
- Closed user groups (CUG). These are subscribers who make and receive calls from members within the group, which can be a family, work teams and so forth.
- Full PostPay that gives users unlimited talk time including international phone calls, text and browsing. There are no allocation restrictions, but billing is pegged on usage. On-net and off-net calls cost KES 2 and 3 respectively. SMS rates are the same for all networks at KES 1, while data cost KES 4 per MB. This service is meant for enterprises.
- PostPay for corporates and SMEs. Billing is the same as discussed in the previous point.
- iControl, which offers users the ability to manage the limit of their plan from KES 1,000 to KES 100,000.
To get a corporate line for CUG, iControl or pure PostPay, you need to submit your KRA PIN certificate, national ID and fill the standard forms. For an individual PostPay line, you only need your national ID.
It should be noted that you can only purchase PrePay data if you are on iControl and Ongea. To pay your bill, you can use MasterCard, KCB Mobile and Equity Eazzy 24-7, Co-op Mobile and Chase Mobile. No, you cannot pay via M-Pesa for obvious reasons.
