Telstra’s finally joined the sharing plans game with Go Mobile plans. How do they stack up against the competition?
Sharing is the current fad in mobile plans, with Optus and Vodafone already having announced shared mobile plans. Telstra was the longer-term holdout, because while it did have sharing plans a few years ago, and still does if you’re a business customer, those plans were effectively redundant with no sharing option for everyday consumers until today.
Telstra’s latest play in the sharing market is dubbed “Go Mobile”, a range of plans that vary from $55/month all the way up to $195/month depending on your needs for calls to a certain degree in the lower tier, and data all the way up every tier. They’re available in that configuration for business or consumer customers, as well as monthly “Go Mobile Casual” plans, which are on offer for $35, $50 or $70 month with 500MB/2.5GB/6GB of data respectively and $300/$1,000/Unlimited “value” of calls, with a standard 2 minute call attracting a cost of $2.
The casual plans don’t get extras, but the 24-month only consumer and business plans also attract a “bonus” entertainment offer; either a six month Presto subscription or 12 month NRL or AFL pass. You only get the choice of one, and there’s no indication that any data used on those services would be quota free on your mobile.
All the new plans work with Telstra’s previously announced excess data plans that charge $10 per extra GB, or part thereof if you go over quota.
So far, so very much average mobile plan, so where does the sharing come in?
That comes via additional SIMs that can be added to a Go Mobile plan, at a cost of $40 per additional mobile SIM per month. That $40 buys you unlimited voice, SMS and MMS to standard Australian numbers, as well as access to the data on the primary Go Mobile plan, but no additional data in all. If you want to put a SIM into a device that isn’t voice capable — which would primarily be a tablet, although some laptops would also qualify — that’ll cost you only $5 per month extra. Annoyingly, if you just wanted a smartphone with data, you can’t chuck a $5 data-only SIM in there, at least according to Telstra’s rules.
Here’s the basics of Telstra’s new deals first.
[table]
Telstra Go Mobile Plans,,,,,
Plan Name,Monthly Cost,Included Calls,Included Text,Included Data,Minimum Cost
Business/Consumer S,$65/$55 ,$800/$550 ,Unlimited,1.5GB/1GB,”$1,560/$1320″
Business/Consumer M,$85/$70 ,”$1,200/$1,000 “,Unlimited,3GB/2.5GB,”$2,040/$1680”
Business/Consumer L,$100/$95 ,Unlimited,Unlimited,6GB,”$2,400/$2280″
Business/Consumer XL,$135 ,Unlimited,Unlimited,10GB,”$3,240 ”
Business/Consumer XXL,$195 ,Unlimited,Unlimited,16GB,”$4,680 ”
Casual S,$35 ,$300 ,Unlimited,500MB,$35
Casual M,$50 ,”$1,000 “,Unlimited,2.5GB,$50
Casual L,$70 ,Unlimited,Unlimited,6GB,$70
[/table]
Firstly, some baseline observations. If you’ve got the cash to spend, Telstra will give you 16GB to blow through on a single smartphone each and every month. That aside, it’s also rather odd that the $50 casual plan gets more calling allowance than the $65/month contract plan, and that if you did want to add a sharing SIM to a Casual S plan, the sharing SIM would actually cost more than its parent device. Also, you’d only have 500MB to share between both of them, which would, I think, evaporate rather quickly.
With every carrier now having a data sharing plan, though, it’s feasible to do a pricing comparison. As always, this is as per vendor-available pricing details on the day in question, and doesn’t take into account network performance or any future details. Do your own paperwork before you sign on the dotted line, people!
The real issue with any “sharing” comparison is that there’s a fair amount of flexibility in terms of how you’d build a comparison. So for the sake of brevity, I’ll set up two scenarios, both with one master SIM and two “child” accounts. Sharing is usually seen as a family activity, although Telcos don’t care who you’re sharing with as the money keeps flowing. I’m also specifically looking at the contract sharing options. Telcos do offer casual plans for sharing, but the data quotas are quite low, which makes it rather moot. If you’re happy signing lots of pieces of paper you could swap every single month if the mood struck you, but you’d spend a lot of time doing so.
For the budget stretched “family” of three, what can you get at the absolute entry level tier of each of the big three providers?
[table]
Sharing Plans Comparison,,,,,,,,,,
Telco,Plan Name,Monthly Cost,Included Calls,Included Texts,Included Data,”Cost for 2 “”child”” SIMs”,Bonus Calls,Bonus Texts,Bonus Data,Minimum 24 Month Cost
Telstra,Go Mobile S,$55 ,$550 ,Unlimited,1GB,$80 ,Unlimited,Unlimited,None,”$3,240 ”
Vodafone,Red,$70 ,Unlimited,Unlimited,3GB,$60 ,None,None,2GB (2x1GB),”$3,120 ”
Optus,My Plan Plus,$40 ,Unlimited,Unlimited,500MB,”$80 (2x My Plan Plus $40 plans, shared)”,Unlimited,Unlimited,1GB (2x500MB per plan),”$2,880 ”
[/table]
Optus is the cheapest service over a two year period, with the same amount of data in total as Telstra, once you take into account that Optus’ current sharing deal involves pooling any number of postpaid plans, so you’re essentially just buying three of the $40/month plans over two years. Vodafone would give you the most data, with a total of 5GB per month over three devices for $240 more than over the two year period, or rather more obviously, $10 per month, while Telstra’s the most expensive option there. In terms of entertainment options, Vodafone also bundles 12 month subscriptions to Spotify, Stan or the SMH in with its Red plans at the time of writing, while Optus will give you a six month Netflix subscription.
What about at the higher end of the pricing tier? Probably fine if your surname is Hancock (although they may not “share” that well to speak of) but here’s how the numbers stack up at the pricey end of the scale.
[table]
Sharing Plans Comparison,,,,,,,,,
Telco,Plan Name,Monthly Cost,Included Calls/Texts,Included Data,Cost for 2 child SIMs,Bonus Calls,Bonus Texts,Bonus Data,Minimum 24 Month Cost
Telstra,Go Mobile XXL,$195 ,Unlimited,16GB,$80 ,Unlimited,Unlimited,None,”$6,600 ”
Vodafone,Red,$100 ,Unlimited,6GB,$140 ,None,None,6GB(2x3GB),”$5,760 ”
Optus,My Plan Plus,$100 ,Unlimited,10GB,$200 (2x$100 My Plan Plus),Unlimited,Unlimited,20GB (2x10GB),”$7,200 ”
[/table]
Yes, you can spend that much at any given telco over two years if you’re so inclined.
I certainly won’t judge you, but there’s some interesting trends here. While Optus flips positions to being the most expensive option at $600 more than Telstra and $1440 more than Vodafone, you are sitting on 30GB of mobile data for your money. For that kind of spend, you’d really want and need to be using that much data for it to make sense. Vodafone is the “cheapest” option, and also the low runner in data terms, with 12GB of data per month to use across your three devices to Telstra’s 16GB, although you would at least get all your calls and texts on your secondary devices covered as well.
So what’s the essential verdict? Telstra’s entry into the sharing space does invite some competition, but for the most part things are as they ever were, with the big T offering either the most expensive packages, or those with the lowest data provisions depending on your precise needs. Given it’s rather specifically not offering calls on those child SIMs, I’d strongly suggest looking at options such as monthly prepaid, even with Telstra, over a 24 month contract secondary or tertiary SIM.
Final observation: Telcos have finally woken up to the fact that texts, which are essentially cost-zero propositions for them at this stage, shouldn’t be charged for if you’re a contract customer. That’s quite a good thing.
Image: Ed Dunens