Altel Prepaid Is Shutting Down At The End Of 2022

Altel will cease the operation of its consumer prepaid service on 31 December 2022. According to the announcement on its website and Facebook page today, the MVNO decided to discontinue the service as Altel Group of Companies is currently restructuring its business activities.

Starting from today until 30 November, existing Altel Prepaid customers who like to retain their current mobile number can choose to migrate to the MVNO’s host operator, Celcom. By choosing this option, they will also be able to request credit balance refunds which will be deposited directly into their bank accounts.

Alternatively, they can also move to other telcos by using the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) process. However, they also have to port out to the new telco by 15 November and will not be able to request for refund as all credit balances would be forfeited when they migrate their number via MNP.

If they choose not to do anything, their numbers will be automatically transferred to Celcom on 1 December. Once this takes place, they will no longer be eligible to apply for a credit balance refund.

For Altel 365 customers, they can also apply for validity refund but only if there are still more than two months of balance remaining in their validity period. Regardless of which refund types customers requested, the company said that it is committed to fulfilling refund requests from 1 to 31 December 2022.

We first noticed the existence of Altel back in July 2013, just one week before the company rolled out its prepaid service in early August. At that time, the service’s starter pack costs RM7 while there was also a weekly data plan that cost RM15 for 500MB as well as a monthly data plan that provides 2GB of quota for RM48.

The company has also participated in the 5G Demonstration Project phase at Langkawi in early 2020. Through a collaboration with MooVita (now eMooVit), Pioneer Smart Sensing Innovations Corporations, TM, and Tradewinds Cooperation, the telco’s project involved a 5G-powered four-seater autonomous shuttle that was used to carry guests at the Pelangi Beach Resort & Spa.