Tonight on A Current Affair, Trevor Long discussed the details of the recently unveiled AldiMobile, and we’ve captured the details here for your reading pleasure.
Here’s what we know:
- AldiMobile will be using Telstra’s Wholesale 850 MHz network, as predicted by Ausdroid yesterday.
- This will give customers unparalleled coverage over Optus and Vodafone offerings, but without the full speed of the Next G network, or access to Telstra’s 4G network.
- Prepaid: $15 or $30 recharges, including 12 cent per minute calls, voice mail and text.
- Plan: $35 monthly plan with unlimited calls, voice mail and text and 4GB of data. Unclear whether this will be a pre- or post-paid plan.
- Customers can recharge by phone, in store, or online. Given the prevalence of Aldi Stores, this could be a good option for the budget-conscious.
- Customers can bring their own handset, or they can choose from a couple of in-store phone options as we unveiled yesterday.
Check out the detail in the plan matrix below:
Comparisons are being drawn with Kogan Mobile, which offers a $29 plan with unlimited calls and texts, along with 6GB of data. On the face of it, this sounds a better deal, however we’ve seen a number of people complaining of issues getting Kogan Mobile SIM cards, obtaining pre-paid credit and porting numbers, so your mileage may vary.
Will Aldi’s bricks-and-mortar status appeal to the Australian consumer who likes to be able to walk into a store and buy something? Will the $6 a month difference, and slightly less included data, make a major difference to the success of Aldi’s product?
Let us know in the comments. This is sounding like a pretty good deal to us.
I was in Boomi between Moree and Goondiwindi. Everyone else could get mobile coverage and I couldn’T. Why?
Q:What is the difference between accessing the Telstra 3G Mobile Network through a Telstra wholesale provider or through Boost Mobile?
A:Boost Mobile has access to the full Telstra 3G Mobile Network (excluding 4G coverage). Customers with a compatible UMTS (3G) 850MHz device can access the same speeds and coverage as Telstra customers, including coverage of around 99.3% of the Australian population. The Telstra Wholesale coverage footprint is slightly less and does not have access to the same range of speeds.
http://www.boost.com.au/frontend/faq.aspx
No Aldi stores in WA yet, but are on the way apparently. Personally prefer the better deal on post-paid with Virgin. All value can be used for international, and they have rollover feature for unused calling for the next month.I get $700 of calls etc each month and a Galaxy Note 2 4G phone (pHablet) for $54 a month, with great service on my Post-Paid plan with 3Gb of Data.
Does that mean the network coverage will be better than Optus and Vodafone?
Boost Mobile is now on Telstra and offers a similar deal for $40 (3GB as opposed to Aldi’s 4GB) but with full NextG, not the crippled wholesale version.
Aldis advantage will be distribution obviously. SIM cards and phones at the checkout.
Still a fine deal.
with kogan i have to buy $14.99 bolt on, to call or sms new zealand, how silly, and dont know if i can tether, what about aldi will have to wait and see.
I’ve not had a problem tethering on kogan
if they’re on the 850mhz frequency then they’d be on next G wouldn’t they? thats next G frequency.
They only allow single channel through … rather than the dual channel that NextG is. I also heard something about not ALL towers being included in the wholesale network … not 100% sure on that though.
Long story short, yes it’s 850, no it’s not full NextG.
Any idea how this compares to Vodafone’s network speed-wise? I’m talking about Sydney CBD and North Shore. I get H+ most of the time on SGS 2 with Vodafone.
Probably similar speeds, unless Voda do dual channel in Sydney CBD? Not sure …
The big advantage is really that the lonely arrow (requesting data and getting nothing back), should theoretically be much less common on the Telstra wholesale resellers than it is on Vodafone. I often find myself getting no data through on Vodafonei in Perth … other times it’s fine.
Kogan Mobile is awesome. Data speed also good enough for every day use.
I’m happy with Kogan Mobile.
I’m guessing MOG won’t be unmetered on Kogan or Aldi?
Been with Kogan since they launched (ordered SIMs the same day). Did take a while to port, but that was Telstras fault, not Kogans. And they’ve since given me 2 $25 vouchers (for Kogan.com.au stuff, of course), so I’m not complaining. The service has been great though. Getting pretty much full coverage everywhere and 6GB really is amazing, currently up to 4GB used this month with 2 days left. If Aldi don’t include data in pre-paid that’s a big loss, but I don’t doubt that having stores with so much foot traffic will help them out by a fair bit.… Read more »
Why did they give you free vouchers? I’m on Kogan and haven’t gotten anything like that.
It took about 2 weeks to port me over.
Kogan is roughly $25 per month if you pay up font for a year. Both will have 1 MB session limits so data won’t go as far as some of the alternatives.
Pretty sure every MVNO and most of the big names like Optus and Vodafone are billed in 1MB blocks too
Vodafone definitely don’t as they recently back off doing that due to all the publicity, and I was with ExeTel (Optus) who don’t and TPG don’t also…
Live Connected 1KB blocks……….
waiting for ur kogan network review 🙂
Same network…