Maxis has recently been promoting its “zero bill shock promise” which promises that customers will not be charged for data consumption that they did not use. This has now been followed up with a new video featuring a room full of children that are unable to understand simple instructions, and an unattended smartphone.
The video reinforces the fact that Maxis does not charge pay per use customers for the first 250kB of data used every month. Essentially saying that customers do not have to worry about children picking up their phones and doing whatever it is that five-year-olds do on a phone.
That being said, while the setup and premise of the video is more or less accurate about how kids cannot keep their hands off shiny electronics, it does not show what the children are doing on the phone. There is no telling if those kids are actually using any data or simply swiping across screens until they get bored. Similarly many smartphone games do not consume data, which makes this experiment rather flimsy. Although the basic scientific principle of rigour is at least attempted here.
To be honest, the low data usage from a bunch of kids is rather suspicious. Kids are either smart enough to figure out how to get on the internet – which uses up a whole lot more than just 250kB of data – or get distracted by games with colourful icons featuring cartoon characters (which shouldn’t use data in the first place).
Still, the video serves its purpose as an advertisement. People who like kids will probably enjoy it to an extent.
