My suggestion is that Malaysian telcos abolish prepaid validity periods, meaning customers can use their services so long as they are in credit. Such systems already exist in other countries such as UK. It does not mean you can keep your number forever and never use it. There would need to be a minimum usage or top up requirement, otherwise line will be terminated/barred as usual. Promotions and subscriptions will still have expiry date.

There are several advantages:

1. Convenience.
-Use when you need to
-No more line barring or worse, terminated even you're in credit
-True pay-as-you-go system
-Easier for outstation people

2. Lower income users benefit. They spend less credit but had to top up regularly to keep line active. Is this actually fair?

3. No more complications
-Example: subscribing to an internet weekly pass today yet having your service cut off say 2 days later due to validity expiry even you already paid for a week of internet will disappear

4. Overall, telcos have been scared of this kind of offering will affect their revenue. I do not think the concern is well founded since each people still has their needs and usage. These people would top up in order to buy data, make a call and SMS etc, so this won't be an issue. Also, remember U Mobile's 3x validity? On the other hand, the lower income user will have the line barred and cannot use their credit unless they top up. These poorer users are deprived the service and will not reload until they have to or can afford to.

5. This is a chance for the telcos to offer something better, simpler and more convenient to their prepaid customers and a step forward in modernising the communication system in Malaysia.

Unless some telco did something revolutionary like what webe did with their unlimited data, I doubt we'll have it.

I support this, prepaid is very confusing and very frustrating to manage as you need to think about your validity and credit.

One cool thing I can think of is overdraft for credit. For example, what if we ran out of credit and need to make a emergency call or something, the telco could let us "overdraw" and limit it to a reasonable amount. They can charge us interest to encourage us to quickly top it back up, but they should turn it off by default and leave it as an option.

For the lower income groups, whether working or students, if your monthly budget is RM10 then you either survive on 10 active days per month or you blow most of your credit on buying validity (example, DG's RM8 for 30 days. A more equitable system would give 30 days validity whether you top up RM10 or RM30.

For those that can afford to commit to more monthly spend, the problem really lies in how complicated prepaid plans have become.

In the old school days when all we did was call and text, it was:

top up > use

Nowadays, the process is:

top up > buy a data and/or minutes subscription > use

Then you have two expiry dates to juggle, the credit expiry and the bundle expiry/renewal date. And those two dates come into conflict, giving rise to unnecessary complication and often unfairness.

So, it might be better if top up buys quota rather than time and credit. Then we are back to a simpler process of top up > use. And if we must have validity, and on a purely quota-based system I do not see the need, please let us have one date only.

Still on validity, the telcos blame their prepaid billing platform which is a huge investment and only changed every 10 years or so. I think what really needs to change is their business model and stop relying on this RM1/day top up to stay active model, which is well passed its use-by date.

And as today's poor student becomes tomorrow's successful business man, so the telco will benefit at the end of the day.

Some will say, oh just switch to postpaid... but prepaid has many benefits for both users and telcos. Long live prepaid. Only survival needs change and telcos need to get back their innovative spirit instead of just constantly tinkering with their same old plans.

This post has been edited by dgboy: Nov 17 2016, 09:41 PM

im still using old school digi prepaid sim..

still can use the one year validity...

This could be done by attaching a credit card. If your prepaid in credit, then your credit deducted... otherwise either your usage charged to credit card or an auto top up occurs that is charged to the card. The maximum credit card spend per month can be set by the user.

If this launched, expected the cost will be expensive in every single usage

validity? no worries

normally, payu expensive but bundles with expiry cheap..

light user pay more, regular or heavy user pay less

multiply by the usage, it balances out

ikr, the onexox rate

In my opinion, telco can launch a different sim plan for this kind of consumers.Example current Singtel Hicard plan. Once you top up $10, you'll enjoy 90 days validity and 10 days of free incoming call. The rest 80 days will still able to use the service as usual but you'll get charge for incoming call. This will maintain the profit for telco as well as benefit the consumers that less using the services（sorry for my bad English）

This post has been edited by jasontanky: Nov 17 2016, 10:37 PM

such thing will not work in Malaysia that how numbers get recycle after validity expire then grace period then termination.

prepaid is for ppl that do no want to commit. i keep alot vvvvip no for me is great imagine i bought a 01325555555 then i convert to prepaid using what u said no validity i can keep that number until i die.

when u reload let say rm30 your validity 1month data plan is also 30 days so whay the problem?

telco needs money to maintain the network if everyone dont pay they eventually close down

seems like u never use prepaid before when that happens u can request sos credit of most telco u get like rm3 and 3 days validity. it will be deducted on your next reload.

seems like if u run a telco company overnight close down boss.

most of this high usage isnt from malaysian but bangla and indon workers in malaysia. they reload to call home or just to have internet to surf facebook and chat. they are not like us can have wifi, go to mamak or register for postpaid.

if u notice digi doing many offer to call bangaldesh and indonesia free calls and sms because they reload much more than you and this people not everyone have a valid permit so end up they just use prepaid.

Are you even malaysian? Me as a malaysian uses data a lot. That's why so many telco offered much data

I've stated that telco can force user to topup according to minimum usage or so

That is why TS wrote:

It does not mean you can keep your number forever and never use it. There would need to be a minimum usage or top up requirement, otherwise line will be terminated/barred as usual.

You see, OneXOX just have a long² validity period. Once the validity has expired, you would start at basic again.

Data validity would remain, but account validity should be remove.

He said that this system does not mean that you can keep a number forever, did you even read what he wrote?



Fine, you are correct in your statement that you can purchase advance credit from Digi but if you say this would cause a telco to loose money I beg to differ. I said that a telco could charge interest. With that, a telco can earn money from that just like how your bank does when you overdraft. Plus, instead of typing in USSD code everytime, why not make it seamless, the user can choose the limit for themselves and while we are at it, why not market it and make it sound revolutionary

This post has been edited by jack2001: Nov 17 2016, 11:05 PM

abuden. unker ppl say prepaid unker. u so old as malaysian u dont have a postpaid line ah

i got company u mobile unlimited calls with 15gb data and 7gb video

yes 4g broadband 16gb and 8gb for 4g lte

unifi 30mbps