Iota cancels unlimited Internet, new tariffs. Unlimited Internet from Yota: connection rules, types and features of the service

According to the information that has appeared to us, all the rumors that the company has decided to cancel its approach to pricing its services are completely true. Yota’s management is preparing to abandon many years of promotion of its main “trump card” - true unlimited.

Yota 2017 - no Unlimited

From January 25, 2017, all new subscribers will not be able to see unlimited tariffs in the list of services and tariffs.

Package solutions and unlimited access to mobile applications. In short, all fans of the networks VKontakte, Twitter, Facebook and some others (the list is being finalized) will not have to worry about using traffic in some networks, but if you go beyond the tariff limits, all the benefits will end there .

Prices

The new cost of package tariffs will be close to competitors’ offers, but as we know, the fate of an MVNO operator is poor and unstable communication, which makes Yota one of the “slowest” and most problematic 4G operators in Russia.
You can study the new tariffs for Yota smartphones in more detail in the updated article -. A convenient table shows all prices, costs, minutes, traffic for each limit package.

Results

It is a pity that instead of improving the quality of the services provided and developing fourth-generation networks, the company’s management did not come up with anything more rational than abandoning the long-standing motto - Yota Unlimited Internet. Megafon's purchase of Yota along with the frequency resource was an illegal operation that was prohibited by current legislation. Unfortunately, the degradation of the company is inevitable.

The decision to cancel packages with unlimited Internet traffic was announced at a meeting with journalists on Thursday, December 22, by the General Director of Scartel (Yota brand) Vladimir Dobrynin.

From January 25, Yota will not sell unlimited Internet, but packages of minutes and Internet. The changes will affect only the “SIM card for smartphone” product and do not apply to offers for tablets and modems.

According to Dobrynin,

80% of Yota clients use no more than 5 GB of traffic per month, so now they won’t have to overpay for data they don’t use.

At the same time, the option of an unlimited Internet package will remain available to old Yota subscribers.

It has not yet been decided what will happen after the traffic expires. There are two options on the Russian market: reducing the speed of the Internet connection or additional payment for traffic above the package.

Dobrynin emphasized that Yota’s subscriber base is the most advanced part of the population, who are “innovators and trendsetters.” Now the operator faces the task of expanding its subscriber base.

Along with the cancellation of the unlimited Internet package, Yota will reduce the cost of its tariff plans so that they are comparable to competitors. The company has not yet disclosed prices.

In addition, the operator will allow users to purchase as an additional option the connection of mobile applications, the traffic of which will not be taken into account.

Initially, it will be possible to activate individual social networking and instant messenger services. Dobrynin did not name their list, adding that YouTube would definitely not be included in it.

VimpelCom (Beeline) works in a similar way, which does not take into account the traffic of individual sites. Last year, the company also collaborated with the WhatsApp messenger, without counting the volume of information transmitted through it. The partnership lasted until January 15, 2016.

Signal for the Big Three

Yota became the first major Russian operator to make such a decision.

The possible cancellation of tariffs with unlimited Internet traffic was announced on December 15 at a meeting with the press by the new General Director of VimpelCom, Shell Morten Johnsen. In his opinion, such measures discipline subscribers who consume large volumes of traffic in conditions of high network congestion.

Johnsen drew attention to the lack of frequency resources. The move to cancel unlimited Internet in operator tariffs is due to the fact that the 3G networks of operators are already overloaded, and the load on 4G networks is growing at a high rate.

“You will see step by step that the industry will gradually move away from unlimited tariffs. Users with normal data consumption will not see a change, but this will discipline people who use extremely large amounts of data,” Johnsen said.

The head of VimpelCom did not disclose when the operator will abandon Unlim, since he cannot do this on an “individual basis,” but noted that the company will support this trend.

“Unlimited tariffs are in some demand, but the actual consumption of data traffic on them is not much higher than on tariffs with included data traffic packages.

In the future, unlimited tariffs for all subscribers will restrain further market development,”

— Anna Aibasheva, head of the Beeline press service, told Gazeta.Ru.

According to her, international experience suggests that balance in this matter can be achieved through the introduction of a pricing model based on the cost of a unit of transmitted data, and not on the cost of a minute of voice communication.

MTS declined to comment.

Head of the Strategic Communications Department of Tele2 Konstantin Prokshin believes that unlimited package tariffs are a niche offer that meets the requirements of a certain group of users. For such subscribers, as the operator’s representative explains, unlimited mobile Internet is important and minutes and SMS are less needed.

“Our networks are built on modern equipment, so they have a large reserve of traffic throughput while maintaining high download speeds. That's why

We don’t plan to give up unlimited tariffs yet - this offer helps us attract new subscribers,”

— he said in a conversation with Gazeta.Ru. However, Prokshin added that the company will monitor market trends.

Megafon took a similar position. “We did not plan any changes in the near future,” the operator’s press service said.

Now they'll catch up

The transformation into a full-fledged operator service was facilitated by the purchase of Yota assets by Megafon in 2014, on the infrastructure of which the activities are carried out.

At the start, Yota highlighted a completely unlimited Internet package as its feature. The only limitation for users was the inability to “distribute” it from a smartphone to other devices.

At the same time, unlimited Internet options in the Big Three packages appeared relatively recently.

Thus, MTS released “Smart Unlimited” to the market in mid-May 2016, Beeline introduced “#EVERYTHING is possible” in July. At the same time, VimpelCom had similar functionality available in postpaid tariffs of the “Everything!” line. back in the spring. In the summer, Megafon also joined the new trend, launching Megafon.Unlimited. The company also has the “Unlimited Internet” option, which is activated on other tariffs. Tele2 gave “unlim” called “Infinitely Black” to subscribers in 33 regions in August.

It is characteristic that when launching “Smart Unlimited” from MTS, Yota “trolled” it by bringing a cake to the competitor’s office with the inscription “Congratulations on unlimited! Now catch up."

Afterwards, the federal mobile operator Yota announced new conditions for the provision of communication services for smartphone owners. They will be available for connection starting January 25, 2017.

“We have made the product line for smartphones simpler and clearer - new customers of the company will be able to buy a package of minutes and traffic at reduced prices, as well as enable the new “Unlimited mobile applications” option. Thanks to this unique option, customers don’t have to think about how many megabytes are spent communicating with friends or watching videos on social networks,” says Yota CEO Vladimir Dobrynin.

Depending on the region, the junior package of Yota services will cost from 250 rubles, it includes from 150 minutes and from 5 GB of traffic. The senior package costs from 2000 to 2500 rubles and includes 5000 minutes and 30 GB. When traffic and calls are exhausted, customers can purchase 5 GB for 100 rubles, as well as additional minutes of calls at a reduced price. For active users of social networks and instant messengers, the operator offers a new option “Unlimited mobile applications”, which allows you to use the following services without spending a traffic package: Facebook, Instagram, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Telegram, as well as Viber and WhatsApp. The cost of connecting this option starts from 100 rubles, depending on the region.

Representatives of Yota explain the changes that have occurred and the refusal of completely unlimited Internet by the fact that the previously existing connection conditions have already lost their relevance and the operator managed to gather absolutely all clients interested in unlimited mobile traffic. That is why the company emphasizes that at the moment there are no plans to change the tariff rules for current customers. At the same time, they note that the strategy aimed at further expanding the subscriber base required changes in tariffs to attract smartphone owners who use the mobile Internet less actively and do not want to overpay for unlimited traffic.

However, we believe that these explanations can hardly be called convincing. The statement that all smartphone owners interested in unlimited mobile Internet have already connected to Yota seems too self-confident. One of the possible reasons for switching to a package offer may be not only to expand the user base, but also to increase the operator’s income from additional traffic purchases after spending the main package and connecting the “Unlimited mobile applications” option. In addition, the operator may be interested in limiting the load on the network due to a more economical attitude of users to mobile Internet packages. Most likely, the number of users of completely unlimited traffic has reached the point where further growth will no longer be profitable for the operator, and customers will face a deterioration in the quality of services due to technical infrastructure limitations. Otherwise, new customers would be left with a choice between a packaged and unlimited tariff, or unlimited would become a separate plug-in option.

From January 25, 2017, Yota offers all new subscribers new tariffs with disabled unlimited. The mobile operator Scartel (a subsidiary of MegaFon, provides services under the Yota brand) took such measures for the following reasons:

• over the entire existence of the company, the average amount of data consumed was 5 GB
• refusal of unlimited will reduce the cost of the subscription fee

These are the main reasons why Yota is removing unlimited Internet. The only correct decision for the company began to leave full unlimited access to those who managed to connect or. But at any moment, a person who considers that the new line of tariffs is more profitable for him can easily change the tariff and use it on cheaper terms.

Cost of new Yota tariffs

Let's look at how it really is in 2017. For example, let’s take the most expensive region – Moscow. In general, the cost is formed from the following factors:

• Availability of additional services (for example, SMS package)
• Region (depending on the region, the price fluctuates up or down)
• Internet volume and minutes (The fewer minutes and traffic you choose, the lower the subscription fee)

But let’s get back to comparing prices with full unlimited internet and limited internet. The cheapest old tariff in Moscow cost 490 rubles, and now a tariff plan with minimal requirements (300 minutes for communication and 5GB of Internet) costs 400 rubles. From 250 rub. the tariffs will be in other regions of Russia (from 150 minutes of calls will be included there).

How to connect a new tariff to Yota

Using your mobile phone, you can connect to a tariff package, the prices for which you can see in the Terms and Tariffs section. The tariff package costs from 250 rubles and includes:

1. unlimited calls between Yota subscribers throughout the country without intranet roaming
2. from 350 to 5000 minutes for local and long-distance calls to numbers of other operators
3. from 5 to 30 GB of Internet

If you wish, you can enable additional options:

• unlimited SMS/MMS for 50 rubles;
• 100 additional minutes for 150 rubles;
• 5 GB of Internet for 100 rubles;
• unlimited access to mobile applications for 100 rubles.

Unlimited access to Yota mobile applications

The “Unlimited applications” option for 100 rubles can be activated through the Yota mobile application or through our online chat, or by typing *604# on the phone keyboard. You can purchase an additional option at any time during the package validity period. The option is renewed automatically. The option is activated for the duration of the current tariff package.

Currently, applications with full Internet access include:

Perhaps this is all the basic information about the new tariff plans of Yota and why Yota is removing unlimited Internet. Write in the comments how you feel about this innovation? Has the company's policy improved or should everything have been left as it was?