News
27 Mar Grace period for mobile data
When a Mobile Vikings user does not top up his account for more then 31 days, his mobile data bundle expires. How should we charge those users?
The normal behaviour of the system is to start charging the user at the rate of 2.5 € / MB. This is quite expensive for someone who has become addicted to mobile internet. Since most users wait "until the last minute" before topping up, we saw some users miscalculating their top up by a day or 2 and losing all of their calling credit on mobile internet in this way.
We feel our users deserve a second chance. To avoid users being charged at a rate of 2.5 € / MB we introduced a "grace period" in our system. This means that until the end op May 2009, users that exceed their 1GB free internet or exceed their 31 days period will be able to continue to surf for free. In their account they will see their remaining megabytes go to a negative value, reminiding them to top up immediately.
We hope this system will not be abused by our users. If some users don't recharge within a few days after they go negative, we will be forced to re-evaluate the grace period.
If some individuals would spoil the game by not following the rules, we are confident that the Mobile Vikings community will correct them.
Comments
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Jeroen
Sun 12 Apr 2009 12:35Ik volg Fedcup, Thomas, Dave en nog een paar anderen. Ik zit nu gratis op het internet, maar ik zou liever betalen. Die 15 euro zal pas na een maand op zijn, zeker nu het internet nog steeds gratis is. Ik word ook niet graag als slechte klant bestempelt.
Bedankt Mobile Vikings voor de service, want ik geniet er echt van, maar laat ons aub kiezen of we geïnteresseerd zijn in die Grace Period.
BTW: Mijn data blijft wel op 0 staan ipv dat het negatief gaat.
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Calvin
Mon 20 Apr 2009 20:54You can change the grace period policy so that the user has more time to use their bandwith...
let's say that they top up for 15 euro and that they user spend less than 15 euro/month on calling... 1000 sms is hard to exceed... so is 1gb of data (actually when such a heavy user exits he/she *will* top up again within the month so no problems here)
instead of giving them 1gb for one month you *can* give him/her 1gb for a longer (or maybe unlimited) period
OR let the user split his data between months
1 x 1gb
2 x 500mb
4 x 250mb
5 x 200mb
8 x 125mb
10 x 100mbin that case there's no grace period needed. Personally I don't call often so I don't have the need to recharge other than to get my 'free' internet for the next month... and i probably reach 1gb after a few months so I rather have a longer period to use my free internet than a grace period which i'll abuse unintenionally (as i'm not used to recharge each month and most apps on my phone make a connection without me really knowing it.
Easiest is... for each 15 euro you get 1gb... use it when you want it (not restricted in time).
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bart
Tue 21 Apr 2009 16:53Hey, isn't it possible to make a choise online so users can choose between "grace period" and not. so every user has the freedom of having the account he wants.
I would like to have special formulas for users that doesn't sms and surf much
like €8 for 100free sms and 100mb traffic/month, I would prefer such a account because I only use it for emails and I'll never go over 100 sms'es/month,
I have no clue what is possiblegreetz bart
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henk jansen
Tue 21 Apr 2009 17:45Ik zou er ook voor kiezen om de einddatum van je dataverbruik met een maand te verlengen telkens je een topup doet.
dus stel:
je stort 15€ op 1 april 2009 (einddatum voor het dataverbruik is dan 1 mei 2009)
stel nu 14 april is je 15€ op, en je stort opnieuw 15€, dan zou de einddatum van je dataverbruik niet 14 mei moeten worden, maar 31 mei...
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Koen Delvaux
Wed 22 Apr 2009 09:48@all
We are of course working on other tariff plans as well.The current tariff plan is "invite only" because it is only available for a limited number of customers.
You also have to realise that the real cost of 1 GB of data and 1000 SMS is much higher then 15 €.
The time restriction that operators add to their "free" bundles is intentional. In this way, the "average" user consumes much less then 1GB/1000 SMS, since users also are making voice calls. Or they need to top-up again since their bundle expires after 1 month.
We are negotiating together with Base what packages are possible in the spirit of Mobile Vikings, without needing to limit the number of users with invite codes.
We'll keep you posted!
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calvin
Wed 22 Apr 2009 11:15@Koen Delvaux:
Sounds good to me. Any hints about when you want to introduce those new tariff plans?I hope bye or before the end of this year ;)
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marc
Wed 20 May 2009 12:42The problem to top up can be solved: if the free period or the 1GB limit is ended then you come on a page where you can chose: go to the topup page or go further at a 2,5€/MB rate. Even when you don't have any datalimit for free I think you should have the possibility to topup for free.
When it's not possible via mobile internet maybe via sms -
Steve Mattiacci
Sat 06 Mar 2010 04:26I think the best thing is to let the user go to -50MB until the next topup, with a limit of 10 days from the expiration date. The extra volume used will be taken from the next Gigabyte package when the user tops up.
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Sam De Waele
Wed 26 May 2010 14:27Something like Steve said would be great!
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Jan-Lennert Geuns
Tue 06 Jul 2010 01:14So this doesn't count annymore?
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