26 February 2017 Telkom's FreeMe product, which allows customers to choose how much data they want, with free calls and text messages, has been expanded to include FreeMe Family, launched today.

FreeMe Family brings the data-led convenience of FreeMe to families, who can now share data across up to ten SIM cards. This allows families to consolidate their cellphone spending and realise benefits for the entire household with just one account. FreeMe Family offers consumers a single view of their family’s cellphone bill, and can customise their data allowance and usage for maximum flexibility at a single fixed fee.

"FreeMe Family brings the great benefits of FreeMe – simplicity, ease of use and value – to a sharing format, helping you to budget better so that you always have the data you need.” said Telkom Consumer’s Managing Executive of Customer Value Management, Mr Bertus Van der Vyver.

FreeMe Family comes in three sizes. Consumers can choose between 30GB, 50GB or unlimited shared data, which includes 300, 500 or 1000 shared minutes respectively. The primary SIM card holder can allocate benefits to family members according to the household’s needs. Additionally, consumers receive 10GB of Wi-Fi per SIM per month, 3 000 on-network minutes per account, 50 SMS messages per a SIM per day, and free IM and VOIP calls. The standard plan comes with one primary and three multi-SIM cards, but up to six additional multi-SIMs can be added. Top-up purchases can be made if data is depleted before the end of the month.

"For example, a family of four sharing 50GB of data may initially allocate 15GB to each parent and 5GB to each child. But if your child keeps running out of data in the first week, you can re-allocate the remaining 10GB in the account, ensuring that you don't have to pay out of bundle charges. Or, if Mom and Dad have data remaining at the end of the month, they can share this data with the rest of the household. Previously, any spare data which was not used went to waste," said Van der Vyver.

FreeMe Family builds on the success of FreeMe, South Africa’s first data-led cellphone product. Approximately 260 000 Telkom FreeMe connections were sold in the first three months of its launch last year.

With FreeMe Family, consumers also benefit from Telkom’s high-speed network with no hidden costs or confusing contracts, and can put their data needs first. Last year, Telkom reviewed its spectrum capacity so that it could deliver greater coverage and faster data speeds, so that more consumers can benefit from over the top services such as WhatsApp and Viber, as well as video.

FreeMe Family is available at the following price points:

• FreeMe Family 30GB @R699 per month
• FreeMe Family 50GB @R999 per month
• FreeMe Family Unlimited @R1499 per month