Many years ago, when Vodafone first came to Australia, the introduced a new concept in mobile phone charges called “charged per sec”. It was revolutionary because prior to that both Telstra and Optus charged you for each 30 sec or minute block you started.
Now many years later, it seems that charging per second has all but disappeared as a feature. So it seemed anyway. There are a handful that still offer this service and interestingly enough they are all telcos that use the Vodafone network.
In the prepaid mobile space your choice is limited to Just Mobile with their Just 15 Prepaid Plan. No other provider offers it, no even Vodafone themselves. In the Sim Only space there are several more, including SlimTel, Reward Mobile and TPG.
Why has it all but disappeared? I guess it mustn’t provide the margins that charging per 30 secs does. However, for those that do still offer this feature, it is quite a differentiator, particularly considering not many product still offer it.
Before writing this post, I sat and thought about how much of a differentiator it is. Lets put it this way. if you made a 3.05 minute call, Just Mobile would charge you only for what you used, ie only 5 seconds worth in the 4th minute. All other providers would charge you 7 sets of 30 seconds, ie the 5 seconds would be worth a whole 30 seconds and charged accordingly. Not fair? That is the advantage of being charged by the second rather than the 30 second block. Now there is a way around this, and that is make the most of each 30 second block that you start.
