Telstra will today announce new Go Mobile plans to make it easier for family members to share plans and data inclusions amongst themselves. The new plans have two major features; one is that all services used by a family can be managed on the one account and through the one bill in a relatively easy to understand format. The second is that customers can share data inclusions amongst the connected services.
Customers who sign up to one of the new Go Mobile plans can also take their pick of a twelve month digital pass to NRL of AFL streaming, or a six month pass to the Presto streaming service (noting that data charges may apply if used on the mobile).
The new Go Mobile plans aren’t just for families though, small businesses can get in on the action too with a selection of business plans available, featuring the same shared account and shared data across connected services.
Extra services can be added to any of the Go Mobile plans (consumer or business) by paying for a $40 companion SIM. Each of these extra services will have access to unlimited voice, SMS and MMS to Australian numbers, and they share the data inclusion with the primary service. For those services that don’t require voice, SMS and MMS (for example connecting a tablet), the companion SIM costs just $5.
Telstra seems to be onto a good thing here with announcing these plans, but the additional voice services do seem a little bit expensive. If you take Telstra’s Go Mobile Large plan (which is priced at $95/mo), you get 6GB of included data. To share that with an additional two SIMs is going to cost an additional $80 a month. Very quickly, the cost may become counter-productive; for $40/mo you might find that you can get unlimited calls, SMS and MMS from another provider, with a reasonable amount of included data already.
The plans do compare somewhat favourably to Vodafone’s shared data Red plans, in that it works out (in some cases) cheaper to take Telstra’s option, although with the Vodafone plans, each additional service adds extra data to the shared pool, whereas Telstra’s do not.
Optus’ family sharing plans work a little differently, in that there’s not a separate fee (as such) to share plans, rather you can combine whatever mix of plans you like on the one account, and the plans all pool their data to share together. Say you’ve got a $100 My Plan Plus, and an $80 My Plan Plus, which have 10GB and 6GB of data respectively, it means that those plans share a pool of 16GB.
There are circumstances where these plans may make a lot of sense though; the Go Mobile XXL plan includes 16GB of data for $195 a month, and if you have some users who use a lot of data and some who use none, $40 per service on top of that might not be such a bad thing at all.
We’ve got all the pricing tables below so you can compare your costs with what you might pay elsewhere. When considering these costs, it does pay to also consider whether Telstra’s network might be worth a fair bit of that cost. While other networks work well in some areas, there are others where Telstra is really the only choice (and vice versa).
Go Mobile – Casual
For comparison, two services sharing the Large plan would cost $110 a month, and gives the services access to a shared pool of 6GB of data.
On Optus My Plan Plus with Family Sharing, two equivalent services would cost $120 per month to share 6GB of data. For $140 per month, the two services could share 9GB (across a $80 and $60 plan combined)
On Vodafone Red shared plans, two services would cost either $70 per month to share 4GB of data, or $140 per month to share 7GB of data. This may be slightly cheaper on Vodafone if you take a SIM-only plan.
Go Mobile – Personal
On a Large plan, two services sharing 6GB of data would cost $135 per month.
On Optus My Plan Plus with Family Sharing, two equivalent services would cost $120 per month to share 6GB of data. For $140 per month, the two services could share 9GB (across a $80 and $60 plan combined)
On Vodafone two services can share 5GB a month for $110 per month, or 7GB for $150 per month.
Go Mobile – Business
On a Large plan, two services sharing 6GB of data would cost $140 per month.
Optus allows data sharing from a mobile plan to data-only devices (e.g. tablets or WiFi hotspots) for $5 per month per device, but does not appear to offer data sharing between phone plans (at least, they don’t seem to advertise it obviously on their website).
On Vodafone two services can share 5GB a month for $110 per month, or 7GB for $150 per month.
The credit doesn’t include international calls which is the main reasons I will never never go to Telstra. Vodafone and Optus include international calls.
Sorry, I’m confused, if i wanted to share a large plan with 2 voice services, why on earth would i sign up for the Go Mobile personal as opposed to the casual?
Casuals are month by month plans. Go Mobile Personal is a plan and can include a handset, new phone feeling and all that other stuff they talk about.
Just goes to show that Telstra offers no value at all in their mobile products.
Telstra’s data allowances are just laughable. They still haven’t figured out it’s 2015 – $55 for 1gb on a 2yr plan?