MVNO Spusu Italia has extended its Spusu 50 offer with 50GB of data until at least the end of October. The plan costs EUR 5.98 (US $5.93) a month and also includes 2,000 minutes and 500 SMS, with the possibility of rolling over up to 100GB of unused data to subsequent months. Activation fees are waived under the promo, while a new SIM card costs EUR 9.90 (US $9.82) with free delivery.

Tarifica’s Take

What makes Spusu’s offer particularly interesting is the opportunity to roll over unused data for use in later months. In the early days of mobile phones (pre-smartphones), it was quite common for carriers to limit the amount of call minutes available to customers each month and rolling over unused minutes to the next month soon became a popular promotion. But eventually, carriers began to offer unlimited call minutes, making “rollover minutes” moot. Once smartphones came to dominate the landscape, however, data quickly became the most relevant feature for mobile plans, and once again, the most common plans are those offering limited amounts of data.

To be fair, Spusu’s rollover data promotion is neither new nor unique; when data was still relatively new and expensive, this kind of offer was more common, and there are a number of other operators who still offer customers the chance to keep unused data. Yet “rollover data” offers are rather infrequent now, especially in the face of the growing popularity of abundant and unlimited data plans.

Even if unlimited data plans do become more widespread, however, “rollover” promotions would still have a function in the marketplace. No-frills MVNOs, such as Spusu Italia, still tend to offer limited data plans at lower price points. For these operators, rollover data could remain a useful promotional tool.