KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 — A few days ago, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil announced that telcos will no longer impose extra charges for 5G. A quick check across the major telcos revealed that most of them don’t actually impose extra fees on customers who wish to use their existing plan for 5G. Yoodo recently waived its 5G Internet pass for its high-speed data plans, while Maxis has confirmed that it has always waived its 5G access pass after the initial free 30-day trial period.
However, CelcomDigi appears to be the only major telco that requires customers to purchase additional passes to enjoy 5G on its lower plans. These passes are advertised as 5G Booster Passes, ranging from RM3 per day to RM20 per month.
CelcomDigi insists customers are not charged for 5G access
Following Fahmi’s announcement, we’ve reached out to CelcomDigi to find out if they are planning to waive such fees. They have responded to us with the following statement:
We wish to clarify that CelcomDigi customers are not charged for access to 5G with any of its postpaid or prepaid plans.
Currently, postpaid customers can enjoy 4G/5G with any of our available CelcomDigi Postpaid 5G Plans. Additionally, customers have the choice to purchase additional data for 4G&5G via the Celcom Life or MyDigi app from as low as RM10/month for 60GB, the most generous data quota offering in the market today. This payment is not for 5G access. The extra data ensures customers can enjoy 5G services without disruption.
Prepaid customers are also able to enjoy 5G with two prepaid plans bundled with 4G&5G, namely Xpax Prepaid 48 and Digi Prepaid Next 5G 48. Similarly, prepaid customers can opt to purchase added data for 4G&5G via the Celcom Life or MyDigi app from as low as RM3 for 3GB.
It is our commitment to make certain that CelcomDigi customers enjoy 4G&5G access seamlessly, and a key part of this is to ensure customers have adequate quotas to avoid any such disruption by enabling one of the most generous quota offerings in the market today.
CelcomDigi representative
In summary, CelcomDigi is justifying its 5G Boosters for lower-tier plans as it believes its users would require more data for a better 5G experience. Unlike their previous RM10 5G access fee (without data) introduced for Xpax and Digi Postpaid early last year, the new 5G Boosters offer extra data of up to 60GB.
Since August 2023, CelcomDigi has waived the 5G access fee for customers on Postpaid plans of RM90 and above. Eventually, Celcom Mega 80 users were also entitled to enjoy 5G access for free, and they could still add more data by purchasing the 60GB 5G data booster for RM10.
5G Boosters are still applicable to Postpaid 40 and below, and non-5G prepaid plans
However, if you’re on Xpax or Digi Postpaid 40 or 60 Plan, 5G Boosters are still required to enjoy 5G. Customers on Postpaid 40, will need to add RM20/month which provides an additional 30GB of data, while Postpaid 60 users will need to add just RM10/month to get 60GB of extra data.
For prepaid users, CelcomDigi is offering daily and weekly 5G boosters which come with extra data. The daily 5G Booster costs RM3 for 3GB of data and RM6 for 9GB of data. The merged telco also has a weekly 5G Booster with 20GB data for RM12.
If you’re looking for a monthly 5G Booster on prepaid, they currently offer 10GB for RM5 (based on the internet pass validity) but it is only offered for Xpax Prepaid RM32 and above.
CelcomDigi wants you to switch to their all-new 5G Postpaid and Prepaid plans
If you don’t want to worry about 5G Boosters, CelcomDigi has recently introduced its all-new “unified” Postpaid plans which comes with fixed quota and “unlimited” options from RM80/month. However, do take note that the new postpaid plans come with various speedcap and FUP.
On Prepaid, their recommended 5G-enabled options are Xpax Prepaid 5G and Digi Prepaid Next 5G, both priced at RM48/month. Xpax Prepaid 5G offers 35GB of high-speed 5G data, unlimited 4G at 3Mbps, 6GB of hotspot and unlimited calls. With the current New Year promo, the plan now comes with 75GB of data.
Meanwhile, Digi Prepaid Next 5G offers 45GB of 5G high-speed, unlimited social (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) capped at 3Mbps, 10GB of hotspot and unlimited calls. Similar to Xpax, the plan also gets a New Year Promo which now provides 85GB of data. — SoyaCincau
