Kogan has stormed back onto the Australian telecommunications scene today with the reintroduction of their Kogan Mobile service, now working with Vodafone and using the carrier’s 3G network.
The new Kogan Mobile offers two plans named 3XL and 5XL, available in 30-, 90- and 365-day varieties. Both plans offer unlimited calls and texts within Australia and 3GB data per 30 days at $29.95 and 5GB at $36.95/month respectively, representing some significant value for prospective customers.
The low prices are a great move, showing a good understanding that hunger for and consumption of data is the major differentiator on today’s mobile plans. In some cases, you could be paying less than $1/day for your service on Kogan Mobile.
Kogan Mobile’s site has more detailed plan information and coverage maps available.
If you use all the included data in your plan within a given month, Kogan Mobile is also offering a 30-day 2GB data pack for $14.95. The pack can also be a cheap way to get data onto secondary devices like tablets as you can use it as its own plan.
For international calls and texts, you can pre-purchase a Premier Access Bolt-on pack that adds a pool of credit for international calls and texts (SMS/MMS), along with video calling (remember that?) and call forwarding and directory assistance.
Kogan Mobile Executive Director David Shafer fired a subtle shot at their previous partners, saying “We now have a network ally who is really supporting us, isn’t scared of competitive pricing, and has an interest in seeing Kogan Mobile succeed in the market.” Both Kogan and Vodafone are considered “challenger” brands in their respective markets.
Importantly, while the service is currently using Vodafone’s 3G network, Iñaki Berroeta, Vodafone’s CEO says “We are excited to extend our fantastic 3G service to Kogan Mobile customers, and our 4G service from early next year” – this leaves little doubt we’ll see a 4G upgrade to the service, hopefully relatively quickly.
Kogan Mobile also offers per-kb billing and gives you a tri-fit SIM so you can use the service in any of your devices, and if you’re a member of Qantas’ Frequent Flyer program you’ll earn 1 point per dollar too.
To get started with the new Kogan Mobile service, head over to Kogan’s SIM starter pack where you can order a SIM with free delivery for the princely sum of $0.05.
Will you be joining the new Kogan Mobile? Tell us in the comments!
There’s a catch: It’s the Voda 3G network, not 4G.
Where I live, Optus 4G struggles to pull 10Mbps down and push 1Mbps up. Voda 4G screamed with 50+ Mbps down/20+ up.
So yes, while strictly YMMV, Voda’s network is very capable in metro areas. Caveat though is the 3G network will get wound down over time (e.g.850MHz with Voda is being refarmed for 4G).
If anyone is serious about an mvno look into jeenee 4g 3gbs a month 300mins of calls and a thousand texts per day all for $30 a month oh and did I mention there a non for profit charity seriously give them a try
I predicted this was going to happen at some point. If they used the optus network I would probably change but Vodafone, no thanks.
Vodafone roam onto Optus these days.
Rather have a full working network instead of roaming onto another.
Well, Optus roam onto Vodafone as well. So if you consider Vodafone as non-working, then, ah…
Are you speaking from recent experience because you’d be quite surprised with the quality network nowadays–i have more reception where others (Telstra, optus) have less quite often. Try it before you bash it…
The bad guys of telecommunication team up.
Ah no thanks!!
Kogan treated customers with utter contempt last time they did this. I wouldn’t have anything to do with them as a mvno. You can count on them changing the plan structure the moment they hit their sweet spot for customers numbers like last time.
I avoid anything to do with Vodafone like they are poison. Past experience was a living nightmare! Fairly happy with Telstra thanks at the moment.
At one stage everyone hate them and called them “Vodafail” but that was a while ago and things have changed since then.
I would be more concerned with Kogan since you will be dealing with them.
I’ve never referred to Vodafone as Vodafail, though I can understand why some folk may of done. I’m not dealing with Kogan. I bought a new phone from them about 4 years ago, it died after 3 months. Never dealt with them since. Vodaphone, and their former friend 3 mobile, were dreadful to deal with, hence my poison remark. They were an absolute nightmare! Vodafone I believe were so bad a few years ago many of their customers took them to court. That’s pretty bad. I’d hope they did learn from things and attempt to change their ways, but I… Read more »
I always have bad experience with Vodafail in terms of reception….better stay with amaysim 4G.
The prices seem pretty good for a fair amount of data, but I think Kogan still has a lot of work to do in earning back customer goodwill after so many people got burned on their last attempt at being an MVNO.