Yeah, yeah. Of course I know it's not news that Glo is one of the most cost effective options for a mobile data plan in Nigeria. However, this information was not of much value to me until recently. My office broadband used to cater for majority of my data needs. That coupled with the fact that I had a salary, I was fine with the 3500 naira for 4.5GB data plan on Airtel. For some reason though, I decided to walk out of my job, in the process, forfeiting a couple of freebies, one of which is free wifi. This used to be available round the clock (more or less).
Inevitably, I had to step up or risk widening the hole in my already leaky pockets. Behold, I remembered Glo and sometime during the week, I picked up a 200 naira SIM card while passing through computer village. Today, I proceeded to look up the specifics of Glo's data plans. What I saw, I must say, is truly impressive, considering what the rates are at competitors. Glo is doing nothing short of giving core data providers like Swift, Smile and Spectranet a run for their money.
Following is a quick presentation of my today's findings:
1. Glo's amazing data bundle offering is actually a promotion called Glo OVERLOAD. When you subscribe to the offer (dial *200# on your Glo sim), you become eligible to receive thrice the original data allowance on data bundle purchases from 2000 naira, upwards;
2. The totally mind shattering data allowances that make Glo the absolute winner of the price wars are presented below:
| Price (Naira) | Data Allowance | Code (SMS code TO 127) |
|---|---|---|
| 1000 | 300MB | 53 |
| 2000 | 2.5GB | 12 |
| 2500 | 4.5GB | 58 |
| 3000 | 4.5GB | 54 |
| 5000 | 12GB | 11 |
| 8000 | 24GB | 12 |
| 10000 | 33GB | 15 |
| 15000 | 51GB | 16 |
| 18000 | 63GB | 17 |
This evening, I welcomed myself into the Glo OVERLOAD club by purchasing the 2500 for 4.5GB plan. Of course, I'd have bought more, say like the 5000 for 12GB plan. But, you know, man's gotta test the waters first na. Fortunately, so far, the service has been impressive both availability and speed wise. Also, the data deduction rate is not magically exponential, as is sometimes the case on Airtel.
Thank you, Sir. Mike Adenuga of Globacom, for permitting some of your gold to trickle down to the masses. We are forever grateful.
P.S.
So, after relegating my Airtel sim to the position titled "Voice calls only", I stumbled upon a couple of blog posts that suggest to me that my move to Glo is not worthwhile. Can you even imagine that bullshit? Anyway, I did not find out until this evening, that Airtel also has a similar multiplying offer called 1+1 (one plus one). So, Airtel, you mean to tell me that I could have been getting 9GB for 3500 naira, had I 'shined my eyes' on time? That I've been forfeiting 4.5 precious gigabytes of data for the past six months, out of ignorance?
Well, it's too late to apologize, Airtel. Too late. In the mean time, occupy yourself by praying that uncle Mike's gold trickle runs out. Maybe then, I'll reconsider.
