The “Family Light” tariff has supplemented the “family” line in Danycom Mobile. The tariff will come in handy if two or more contracts need to be issued for one person. Also about small traffic packages in Danycom, who needs them and is there any need at all?

The name “Family” can be a little misleading. No, this is not the use of a common traffic package by several people, the tariffs are quite individual. Marketers just wanted to emphasize the “family” orientation of the line. They told me about the appearance of a new tariff “Family Light”, for a long time I did not go to their website. I have not seen the advertisements of this operator, you see, enthusiasts find out about the news either by visiting the site, or by any forum hangouts. I wrote a great review about Danycom exactly a year ago, on May 14, 2019. Read here if you are thinking about switching or connecting to Danycom Mobile. The review is long, but almost all the pros and cons are discussed in detail. Over the past year, little has changed.

The new “family” line in the screenshot above, the “Tariffs” section on the Danycom website is here. The tariff line was upgraded in August 2019, the review is here. Compared to a year ago, tariffs have become worse, but not much. The current addition of “Family Light” to the line surprised me: instead of the expected rise in prices, they added a tariff for 99 rubles / month, even 49 rubles / month if paid immediately for a year in advance. Yes, pay as much as 588 rubles. for a package tariff for a year – a serious expense for a zealous subscriber! Look, in “Beeline” the monthly subscriber starts from 700 rubles, and 588 rubles. for a package rate per year are perceived in Moscow as an unfunny joke. Let’s take a look at the tariff.

Family Light tariff

Wherever the borrowed “Light” flashes, the word has firmly established itself in the Russian language. In the names of the tariffs, it is quite apt word, by the way. The architecture of Danycom tariffs has a lot of interesting and not quite usual for Russian realities. In order not to rewrite in other words, I will just take a list of features from the previous review with a slight correction. The above applies to all Danycom tariffs, not only to the new “Family Light”.

• Unlimited calls and SMS to Danycom numbers throughout Russia. Moreover, outgoing calls to Danycom numbers do not consume a package of minutes, and outgoing SMS similarly does not consume an SMS package.
• The free package of minutes includes outgoing calls to subscribers of all telecom operators in Russia, including subscribers of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. And SMS, too, to all numbers in Russia, no “little tricks” like “roaming – yes, canceled, and no one promised you to cancel the long distance!”
• Per-second billing, 3 kopecks / s outgoing calls to subscribers of all telecom operators in Russia, including subscribers of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. In terms of per-minute billing, an average of 1.4 rubles / min is obtained, the maximum is 1.8 rubles / min. An exception is the tariffication of calls per minute when the caller is in the Crimea.
• Outgoing SMS to the numbers of subscribers of all telecom operators in Russia, including subscribers of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, 25 kopecks each. for a little thing. This is already with a noticeable excess of the psychologically effective threshold “10 times cheaper than competitors.”
• Mobile Internet in excess of the free package – 8 kopecks. per MB, that is, 82 rubles. per GB of data. Here, the one who needs a lot of Internet is a loser, and the winner is the one who needs a little Internet.
• When a subscriber uses services in excess of the package or not included in the package, the so-called “technological minus” is allowed – 6,00 rubles. Maybe we won’t go broke, but there is one subtlety here: free packages are not credited with a balance of 0.00 rubles. and below.

• Traffic, minutes and SMS can be exchanged for each other at the rate indicated on the website for converting tariff “currencies” (see the screenshot above). Subtlety: the traffic received through the exchange can be used only during the current billing period, it will not work to collect traffic for future use.

Description of the tariff on the operator’s website here. The most budgetary package plan, except for free plans. They give 30 minutes to all numbers in Russia, 2 GB of traffic and 50 SMS. If we compare “Family Light” with the “Free” tariff, then the only difference is 1 GB of traffic in “Free” and 2 GB in “Family Light”. An additional 1 GB package costs RUB 70, comparable. Alternatively, you can pay for “Family Light” for a year in advance and then it will be cheaper (49 rubles / month). Also, do not forget that the “Free” tariff is given only one piece per hand. If you want to remain an honest person and legally get 2-3 “Free” tariffs on your passport, that is, a special service “3 SIM-cards” for 99 rubles / month, you can read here.

Calls between Danycom subscribers are free, unlimited and do not consume a package of minutes. Similarly, SMS to Danycom subscribers are free, unlimited and do not consume the package. It is tempting to build a family ecosystem on this operator, it can be inexpensive. True, there is one “but” here: usually at least one person in a family consumes more than 350 minutes, 10 GB and 50 SMS (“Family Plus” tariff) provided for in the highest tariff. It would be necessary, of course, to calculate how much more, because picking up what is missing at retail prices may turn out to be more profitable than taking an expensive tariff from another operator. But here logic and mathematics do not always work, it is simply uncomfortable for a person to know that he constantly does not have enough minutes or traffic in the package.

I was pleasantly surprised that they did not touch the minutes / traffic / SMS in excess of the package, they remained the same as in other tariffs, i.e. 3 kopecks. per second of a call, 8 kopecks. per megabyte of traffic and 25 kopecks per SMS. By the way, SMS from the package and paid in excess of the package are sent to any numbers in Russia, no guile with frantic prices for “long distance” SMS. I thought about the prospects of using this “Family Light” as a tariff for IoT, the Internet of things. What? Also an option: there will be enough traffic, and SMS over the package will not be ruined. The “Free” tariff seems to be the best candidate for IoT, but there is an element of risk: if the 5 advertising SMS promised on “Free” really start to fall, then you will be tortured to clean your SIM card. Also, keep in mind that Danycom is an MVNO operator on the Tele2 network, so the Internet thing must support 3G or 4G.

The subscription fee is removed monthly, and if at the time of debiting there was not enough money, then they do not drive them into the minus, but start charging at tariffs in excess of the package, which is quite humane, see the previous paragraph.

While traveling in Russia, the terms of the tariff plan remain, in places where Tele2 coverage (license) is not available, subscribers roam in the MTS network (national roaming). If I understood correctly, Danycom tariffs are the same throughout Russia, which creates some imbalance: for Moscow, prices could be higher, and for many regions, on the contrary, local offers of the Big Four are often more interesting.

Calls to other countries at very attractive prices. Here, of course, the price imbalance is dizzying. For example, to call the USA, India or Japan – 2.90 rubles / min. You look at the price of 13-14 rubles per minute for calls from Moscow to Tula (we will not point fingers at which operators) and you bitterly regret the prohibition of obscene language. List of 36 countries for calls to which Danycom charges 2.90 rubles per minute: Bangladesh, Bermuda, Brazil, Brunei, Virgin Islands (USA), Germany, Hong Kong, Greece, Guam, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Iceland, Italy, Canada, China, Colombia, South Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, USA, Czech Republic, Chile, Sweden, Japan.

The prices for calls to other countries can be found on the page here. The format of a single list is not provided, but I poked at random in a dozen different countries and in all cases received 10 rubles / min, which is also noticeably cheaper than other mobile operators.

They also promise the absence of content subscriptions without any cleverly twisted bans, of which there are up to 8 different pieces with a validity period of 3 months each. Also a plus in favor of building a family ecosystem based on Danycom.

Summary

What can I say here? For Danycom, the tariff is normal, but very little different from the “Free” one. Consider adding a gigabyte of traffic for 49 or 99 rubles. And what was the point of starting all the fireworks out of the blue? Or planning to slam “Free” soon? Anything is possible, but let’s not guess.

By Moscow standards, Danycom tariffs are still quite acceptable if you know how to handle them correctly and understand at least a little of their features and advantages. I have a seditious thought that Danycom is not very concerned about the issue of increasing ARPU and other modern cellular operator prose. They are not much worried about the maximum possible profitability in the market. More like a policy “if it pays off, then thank God.” But this is my personal opinion, which I do not want to impose on anyone.

Mini packs live

Good news about mini-packages. Danycom made small packages for the quarantine period and planned to close them from the beginning of June. However, looking at the popularity, they decided to leave it on a permanent basis. Read the news of June 5, 2020 here, quote:

“The mobile operator DANYCOM.Mobile, a member of the DANYCOM Group of Companies, has included promotional mini-packages of traffic in the main product line. The user experience showed that the reduced traffic volumes proposed in May made it possible to more accurately adjust their tariffs taking into account the actual consumption of services.

Additional packages at special prices, including 100 and 512 megabytes of Internet, 10 and 30 minutes of voice calls and the same amount of SMS, were introduced on April 30, 2020. They expanded the list of the operator’s existing offers, which include 1/2/3/5 GB, 100 minutes and 50 messages. The action was supposed to end at the end of May.

As a result of the campaign, subscribers most often purchased an additional 100 megabytes of Internet, which is more than 40% of all purchases of new packages. Another 20% of users bought additional minutes of calls. The proposals aroused the greatest interest among the owners of the “Free” and “Call for free” tariff plans.

It’s a good thing, but the “Call for free” tariff does not provide an internet package, it will come in handy. The first thought was – it’s very cool, if the Internet was a little short, then you don’t need to pay at retail, you can buy a bag of 100 MB for an inexpensive price. The second thought was about the retail price of traffic in Danycom, which is 8 kopecks. per megabyte. He grabbed the calculator and started scratching his turnips. A 100 MB package costs 10 rubles, a 512 MB package – 40 rubles, the price of a megabyte of traffic in a package is 10 and 7,8 kopecks. respectively. The packet is valid only in the period in which it was connected, that is, not fully used traffic burns out. Which automatically means a slight increase in the price of a megabyte in a package, very few people will be able to use exactly 100 MB. Paying per megabyte is obviously more economical than buying portions of 100 or 512 MB, so retail traffic is also cheaper! Rounding off traffic 100KB, no trickery here. How so? I have several versions:

• I don’t understand something in this scheme, there is some secret meaning there.
• Danycom treats subscribers as idiots. More precisely, it is assumed that people are too lazy to read and count. After all, any fool already knows that a megabyte in a package is always cheaper than retail!
• It is assumed that prices for communication services will rise soon in excess of the package, and after the rise in price, everything will become logical.
• 10 and 40 rubles. – beautiful even numbers, do not put, in fact, the price tag 7.5 instead of 10 rubles.?

The latest version seems to me the most plausible. We are talking about such small amounts that I would not look for some kind of financial cunning here. And, of course, users’ inertia. With other operators, people have already learned that retail megabytes are very expensive, you have to take a package. If the reason is really this, then people are really too lazy to find out even the important conditions of their tariffs.

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