Did I tell you that I’ve been on postpaid for a long time (2014 to be exact ?) No ? You’re right, I had no reason to, because I had no reason to discuss my telecom preferences on my blog. I’m not that boring (or maybe I am – have to check the archives now!) Anyway, point is that I’ve been on postpaid for a long time, and if you’re wondering, even before I had a stable job. Back in 2014, I was still a fresh-out-of-postgrad content writer, and I decided to shift to postpaid at the height of the PayTM/Mobikwik/Freecharge bubble.
Why you ask ?
Simple, I didn’t like recharging so much when I ended up consuming a more or less fixed amount of cash for my “connectivity.” Let’s rewind a bit, to when recharges were purchased from paan shops and you had to bundle a good number of different “packs” in addition to basic “balance” to get a good mix of everything. Plus, data was viciously pricey. Typically, then, people would recharge their “normal” balance for say Rs. 100 and put a Night Calling pack (the “girlfriend” pack basically), a pack that provided special rates for calling to specific numbers, a pack that provided STD calling, a pack that provided a modicum of data, a pack that…….the list goes on.
The logic behind this choose your own menu approach was that you could ideally save the cash that you would otherwise have to pay if you took a bundled option. Like say you wanted 1000 minutes of calling but didn’t want the 2GB data that came with it. You didn’t need to commit to a plan that would eat up your cash while leaving you with excess data and probably starving you of calling minutes. You could buy as you went along, and as a plus, always give the reason “no balance” if you didn’t want to talk to someone or wanted them to foot the bill for taking your precious opinions.
Cost saving + social benefits = Win win! Right?
As it turned out though, not so much. I realized I had become habituated to the same packs and recharges, and when the online recharge bubble arrived, I began to spend more than ever before just to get that sweet cashback. My mobile expenses were rising without providing me any stability. Social benefits? People who know me know I don’t pick calls I don’t want to take. Back then I used to apologize for not taking those calls. Now I don’t bother. So there.
With benefits dwindling, I was asked to take a call on whether I wanted to stay in the prepaid space. Back then all my friends were students or ex-students, and postpaid was anathema among them. People I sought out as sounding boards gave me shrill music on how I’d suddenly become rich. Plus, my then girlfriend thought that if I shifted to postpaid, I should do all the calling. I was the one calling most of the time anyway, but you don’t want people to take you for granted, do you ?
But I took the leap anyway. There was a 399 plan that seemed to offer all I needed, and I took it. With 15% tax (ah the good old days), I could easily manage the month without crossing 500. And that mattered because I was a content writer, going from gig to gig without any guarantee of when the next big paycheck would come. So committing to a fixed liability with variable income – the definition of business – was something I had to weigh carefully. I did, and decided I’d need these services anyway. Plus, there was the excellent benefit of not having my connection cut off at the most inconvenient of times because X pack ran out. Sure, postpaid would charge you extra for using more than your quota, but it would still allow you to make that important phone call while waiting for the bus on a rainy night. All said, rather than bother to endlessly recharge and browse plans, I simply settled in for what worked best for me.
But “best for me” was basically just me. My efforts at proselytizing my fellow thrift-bugs failed miserably. Even when I wasn’t getting the orchestra for being “rich”, I was simply told that it was too much of a liability. It was, in a way, since you needed verifications carried out before you could begin using the connection. But, that was a one-time process, and this was something I couldn’t get these folks to understand.
So while I moved from one postpaid plan to another, my dear friends continued to grapple with the mesmerizing – and ultimately pointless mass – of plans and packs. To be honest, I wasn’t completely cut off from this world. More than once I got an urgent call asking me to recharge this number with that plan, and I happily obliged. But that was it. I wasn’t into the prepaid game anymore, and felt much better shelling out a fixed amount of money at the end of the month. Plus, it taught me how to stay within my limits.
If things had gone on this way, I would probably have remained an exception, and this post would never have happened. But two things happened – a. Airtel’s Myplan regime and b. Jio. I know the post is titled Jio Effect but bear with me as I come to it after dealing with the Myplan system.
Back when I first joined the postpaid regime, I was told postpaid was inflexible. If you wanted this much data, you had to take these many calling minutes and live with it. Sure, the postpaid options were widening across all operators, but the rigidity was still real. Then came along the myplan system. Put simply, myplan allowed you to choose from a basket of different options using a credits system. If you went for the lowest plan, you had say 100 credits. You could divide them between calls, STD calls, SMS and data, with each credit being worth a certain amount of calls, data, etc. The higher up the price ladder you went, the more credits you got.
This was important since my needs every month might not be the same. If I was going on a trip, I’d need STD outgoing to keep in touch with my better half (try explaining telecom circles to an irate girlfriend). When I was applying abroad I needed subsidized ISD minutes. And when I didn’t need any of these, I needed a way to get back to vanilla. Myplan gave me just that. With the option of changing my plan’s credit breakup anytime during the month, I could adjust based on my requirements without having to go through the hassle of a new plan, prorating and complicated bills.
In a way, myplan gave me the dependability of postpaid but combined it with the flexibility of prepaid. I paid the same amount every month but how I made the plan work for me was entirely up to me. Postpaid had basically coopted prepaid.
But still my compatriots stuck to prepaid. They no longer gave me the “rich” comments, since by now a good number were working themselves and it’d be more a comparison of salaries, and nobody wanted that. But they stuck to prepaid, until Jio came along.
Jio disrupted the telecom market in a very real sense, sending established players running for cover and giving them nightmares about interconnect charges, tower penetration and whatnot. It forced mergers, made people consume data like Raj-era opium and generally dragged prices to the pits. But as the dust settles, I’ve come to realize that Jio is what finally turned prepaid users into postpaid ones…..
Without the benefits of postpaid. You see, you cannot purchase vanilla packs of prepaid, and then do the icing with packs of your choice. You have to buy bundles – or as they fashionably call them, buffets – and then live with it. Packs, and now they’re plans, typically last no less than 28 days, and incentivize purchase of two to three month packs at one go. The result is, you end up paying on a monthly basis, for a fixed mix of data, calls and messages and have to typically recharge with the same or higher plan every month. Sounds like postpaid ? Well, postpaid had the benefit that you paid after you consumed the services. Jio forces you to pay beforehand, because, you know, it’s still technically prepaid.
I experienced this for a few months, having gotten my own Jio number towards the end of the free period. Once I did, it boiled down to which packs I would get and for how long. Choosing something like the 509 for two months made excellent sense financially given the benefits offered, but it still meant spending 250 plus tax per month, and downpaying 100% at the start of the cycle. You want to change the nitty gritty of the plan ? Nope, no can do. You want to prorate to another plan mid-cycle ? Nada, your old plan is completely cancelled. You want to pretend you’re still smart because you theoretically pay less than folks on other networks ? Sure.
So nowadays you have two types of customers – genuine postpaid ones, who pay after they consume and pay what they want to using the myplan credit system. And you have disguised postpaid customers, who pay postpaid rates before consuming the benefits, and can’t change anything in their plan.
Does that mean I’ve finally managed to persuade folks that postpaid is actually better ? Nope, and probably never will. But as they whine about daily data caps on their Jio connections and whine further about how they have to shell out exorbitant amounts at the start of the month itself, I know I’ve won a quiet victory. Just don’t tell Antilla, will you ?