Good news for Optus Pre-Paid customers who love streaming music, with Optus today announcing that they will no longer count data streamed from selected services against your data cap.
The offer, which goes live on the 2nd of May will count against a selection of popular music streaming services including iHeartRadio, Spotify, Google Play Music, Pandora and Guvera. The new deal doesn’t include all streaming music services, with Apple Music a notable exclusion.
The offer is available to all prepaid plans including My Prepaid Ultimate and My Prepaid Daily Plus, with Optus also advising that ‘other selected plans’ will be included as well, though there is no mention of whether this includes customers on postpaid plans. Prepaid customers must have available ‘MyCredit’ or data available to use the streaming service as well, though it won’t be counted.
Ben White, Managing Director of Marketing and Product at Optus said
Although Australia is a nation of music lovers, we know that data is the number one barrier for Optus customers when it comes to music streaming. We’re confident these plans will break down the data barrier and convince more Aussie’s to try music streaming with Optus prepaid.
How this ties in with the concept of net neutrality is an interesting topic. Optus hasn’t announced whether the named streaming music services will receive preferential speeds, but they are able to stream to their customers without incurring data use penalties, so will this could give a perceived unfair advantage to those customers.
Optus, has also announced new partnerships as part of their expansion into a more entertainment driven company. Last year Optus announced they had secured the rights to stream and distribute both the English Premier League and Cricket. Optus has announced they have partnered with Universal Music and iHeartRadio to bring their customers ‘a richer music experience with access to events, content and the hottest musical acts’.
The new feature will go live on May 2nd, with existing and new customers both able to access the new services.
