giffgaff, a new MVNO in the UK, has launched today, and announced details on its pricing structure, matching the cheapest networks on the market and cheaper than the top four mobile networks.
The giffgaff pricing structure reflects good value in a competitive market with 8p per minute for voice calls and 4p for text to other UK mobile networks. Free data* is on offer to all members for a limited period, and all members receive free calls and texts to other giffgaff members**. Iinternational prices are equally competitive at 8p per minute to landlines in the EU, India, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand and 16p to mobiles. Calling the USA and Canada is 8p for both landlines and mobiles. Uniquely, giffgaff is also the only UK mobile operator not to charge for any 0800 freephone numbers.
(*Data is free until 25 May 2010. You need to top up with a minimum of £10 when you join giffgaff. Excessive usage policy and terms apply)
(** Members need to top up a minimum of £10 every three months to qualify for free giffgaff to giffgaff calls and texts)
giffgaff is an online only business, with a rather different business model. It taps into existing online behaviour where people get involved by creating content, suggesting new ideas, and supporting each other with queries on forums or blogs. The more members get involved the greater the reward and they will receive payback in either cash, mobile credit, or as a donation to their preferred charity or fundraising group.
As has been mentioned before, O2 is providing the network for the MVNO – so giffgaff are only supplying SIMs. Interestingly, there is an ‘auto-top-up’ feature, which I can’t remember seeing before – this basically means each time you hit the credit threshold, you don’t need to manually get a new top-up – it’s done for you. Fortunately, this feature is optional.
Free mobile internet will be available at launch for approximately six months while the product is in Beta phase. As part of its commitment to member participation, new members can access up to 100MB of free mobile internet per day from the UK, and in exchange, giffgaff hopes to gain insight from its members, including input on the pricing policy for data in the future
giffgaff has launched with a ‘people powered’ campaign on today, asking the public to help make the network famous in return for a V.I.G (Very Important Giffgaffer) SIM that means you receive free UK mobile calls, texts and mobile internet for a whole year***. The original launch campaign is based on a ‘Tool Hire’ concept, whereby a series of marketing tools will be available for free hire at giffgaff.com/tools. The tools are designed to promote giffgaff in an amusing way and the Tool Hire videos will also be used virally to support the launch and the five best videos will each receive a cash reward for £5,000 each.
(*** The VIG offer excludes premium rate, roaming, and international calls and texts Promotional Terms and Conditions apply)
If you want to find out more about all this giffgaff malarkey, a good place to start would be here.