8ta reveals double-edged contract offerings

Mobile fledgling 8ta continues to show promise, with the unveiling of some aggressive contract options for its mobile voice and data offerings. However, the deals are heavily in favour of 8ta-to-8ta calls.

The company entered the market only a month ago, revealing at first only prepaid deals. 8ta vowed at the time that it would disrupt the mobile market as it introduced some compelling prepaid offers.

Through various print outlets, as well as information revealed on the 8ta Web site, the company has unveiled four new contract voice deals on a range of cellular devices - one of which offers per-second billing.

The subscription fees for the four contract options range from R90 to R500. The offers are aggressive in pricing, but it must be noted that the free minutes allocated are split into on-net and off-net calls.

For example, Contract 2, at a cost of R130 per month, offers 130 free minutes for 8ta-to-8ta and national fixed-line calls. The contract offers only 30 free minutes for calls from 8ta to other mobile network operators. All four of the contact deals make similar differentiations.

Also, unlike the flat rate available on 8ta's prepaid offerings - out of bundle rates on its contract deals are split into peak and off-peak rates.

The operator has also unveiled a range of laptop and data bundled deals on the Web site.

8ta's introductory offer for its contract deals awards the first 100 000 subscribers the opportunity to nominate a Telkom landline to which the subscriber will be able to make unlimited calls for the duration of their contract.

Additionally, subscribers that send five SMSes in a day, receive 50 bonus SMSes at no extra cost to use that same day.

8ta was unable to give any more details on its offerings at the time of publication.