by Telkom announced their data-oriented, FreeMe plans in July 2016 and ever since, local networks have felt the heat as subscribers have looked at moving over to the telco giant.
Our Thoughts On The Telkom FreeMe Package
We’ve tried out Telkom’s 20GB FreeMe Boost plan and this what we think. We used it for just over 3 weeks (a boost bundle / plan allows you to top up whenever you need to).
Selecting the plan was easy. All that was needed was a prepaid Telkom Mobile SIM card and sufficient airtime to cover the cost of the plan. In the case of the 20GB option, this was R599.
This is a fair amount of money to be forking over for a data plan, which does not come with a smartphone. But the benefits far outweigh the cost.
The 20GB plan gave us:
- 20480 MB of data (that’s just over 20GB)
- 500MB FreeMe Social Data (this is used for your WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media apps)
- 300 minutes to phone any Telkom Mobile or Telkom Landline number in South Africa
- 1500 minutes to phone any number on any cellphone network in South Africa
- 100 SMSs
500MB data for social media might seem like a little. But, it’s important to note that this data is used for your social media apps before any data is taken from your bundle.
The minutes included in the plan are not limited to a specific time of day. This means that you can use them any time of day, any day of the week. Without having to worry about whether it’s peak or off-peak time.
The One Downfall
Telkom’s FreeMe offerings are certainly impressive, however they are hindered by just one thing, the network itself.
Telkom Mobile does not operate on the same spectrum as MTN, Vodacom or Cell C. This means that where you might normally get cellphone coverage on those operators, you might not get coverage on Telkom Mobile. This is especially noticeable inside buildings where the signal can be spotty, or even non-existent, at times.
If you can live with this annoyance and have your own smartphone, then Telkom’s FreeMe is a no-brainer in terms of value for money.
FreeMe, unlike offerings from other mobile operators (such as Vodacom’s Plus plans), is available at the same cost. Whether you purchase it as a contract or as a prepaid deal. This means that if you are an existing Telkom Mobile customer, swapping over to the FreeMe plan is easier than falling out of bed in the morning.
To read the original Telkom FreeMe article, click here.
