Depends what your situation and usage are going to be
- if travelling then Telstra has the better coverage - you will get reception in most of the country towns. I take out the 12 month plan with Telstra - now costs about $180 (50c per day).
- if residing in one place then check out the coverage by Optus or others.
For mobile phone - If Optus is available in your area, and only making a few calls then Amaysim is good in that your $15 lasts for 3 months! ie you want to be able to receive calls rather than make them!
Glen
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Glen
A diesel Nissan Pathfinder towing a Coromal Element 542.
Chris,
We have Telstra Broadband. We purchased it in 2011 for $150 + $70 for the dongle. This is 12 mths, 15Gb. Renewed it every year and it is now $200. That's a 30% increase. I guess due to the number of people having less landlines, Telstra has to make their money somewhere.
Optus offers the same thing for about $140 + dongle as of course you cannot use your Telstra one. Both are valid for 6 mths (I think) of no use before they are made U/S.
Larry
We use Aldi mobile , cheapest rates around and uses the Telstra network ,and 365 day expirey date , does us just fine.
We tried the Aldi network and although better than optus and Vodaphone do's not seem to use the full Telstra network. it appears Aldi only gets access to 3G and not the nextG service. Depending on where you are traveling it may be worth trying a short subsciption to start with. Our experience is for the places we go there are no options. it has to be Telstra and even then we are often without service. Landy
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In life it is important to know when to stop arguing with people
and simply let them be wrong.
Landy. Thanks for that.............we need 3 and 4G, so unless someone can definitely say Aldi provides full Telstra service, we'll stick with the latter
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
Have been using Telstra mobile broadband now for four years, I'm totally amazed at some of the remote locations I have had good service.
I use Aldi for my Mobile, I have found thier mobile broadband totally useless, I wouldn't even bother wasting my time with it.
FYI, I bought 12Gb last week for $180.00, that lasts a year, it is the cheapest by the Mb.
The problem with Aldi is although they use the Telstra network Telstra customers get first bite of the cherry.
I'm traveling from Adelaide to Albany, WA in about ten days, I will be interested to see how the service I get on that trip.
John
We use Virgin. Post paid. No contract. Bring your own dongle. 12GB a month for $40. Cancel or downsize any time.
If we can't get coverage in a spot we just wait until we get to a coverage spot then catch up on things.
We have had brilliant customer service over the years and would recommend them, with the understanding Virgin use the Optus network so not as good coverage as Telstra.
By the way, we use one "Blue Tick" Telstra phone,one Virgin phone and a Virgin dongle....Works for us.
We use Telstra portable WiFi with a 4G Advanced WiFi Modem and it really works well in some amazingly isolated locations. There are many times we can get internet access but no mobile phone access - one of the phones is a Telstra phone and the other uses Boost which also uses the Telstra network and provides unlimited phone and text to Australian numbers and 2.5 Gb of download capacity per month for $40. Mind you at the price, the Telstra WiFi Modem should deliver - $105 for 15 GB per month is pricey. I've heard that the NBN is launching 2 satellites this year to provide internet access to remote locations. It will be interesting to see if we Grey Nomands can access the service.
Hmmm, Iam I the only one using Optus??? I have what Optus call a $2 a day plan on my smart phone. This gives me unlimited phone calls and text, plus 520Mb of data PER DAY for yes $2's a day. It's pre paid and I get $100 credit at a time, with that I have 50 days to use the credit and if I recharge before the 50 days is up then the unused credit roll over.
On the data, I use the tethering setting on my phone to turn it into a wifi hot spot so upto 5 computers can connect to it...... Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hear the little voices out there saying "what about the coverage?" well I'm more than happy. My wife WAS on telstra, but after an 8 month trip 2 years ago through Queensland I had coverage 90% of the time and she had less than 40% on Telstra. She's now on the same plan with Optus and equally as happy. We're currently touring WA and haven't had too many problems with covererage.
Also, the plan covers 3G & 4G when available. Most touring is in the country areas so 3G's good and when near major centers we sometimes get 4G.
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Steve, Di & Ziggy We named our Motorhome "Roadworx" because on the road works "On The Road Again" Ford Transit with 302 Windsor V8 conversion, C4 Auto, 9 Inch Ford Diff All Lighting L.E.D., 260 Amp/h AGM, 530 Watt Solar + Kipor Backup Gen.
None of the others seem to get anywhere close to Telstra coverage, in our experience. 4G modem with 8GB for $70 a month is the current setup for us. One attractive feature of this setup is that speed is shaped when data allowance is exceeded; no excess data charges as with some other plans.
Iza
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Iza
Semi-permanent state of being Recreationally Outraged as a defence against boredom during lockdown.
NBN sat will be the go IF you can get away with going mobile with it , as far as l know they'll only dish it out to those that can't recieve it in any other way
Hopefully they'll cater for mobile as sat footprints are huge and shouldn't be a problem
It can be confusing and everyone has there own preferences. I have my mobile through TPG and have done for years. They operate through the optus network. I also have a prepaid stick for my laptop through Telstra the same plan as ,mentioned before for $180 a year. I cannot complain about either setup. It is very interesting as I can be in locations where I have no Telstra signal but I have a optus signal and visa versa.
Cheers
Mal
