Telstra knows what we all know too; we love our mobile broadband and we’re using it more, more and more. To help its pre-paid customers get access to more data for a bit less cost, Telstra is rolling out Pre-Paid Mobile Broadband Data Passes, which is a fancy way to refer to pre-paid data packs which include an amount of data that expire after a certain time.
The way these plans work, they’d be perfect to throw in a tablet or a mobile broadband stick for ad-hoc use. For example, say you’re taking a weekend break interstate and you want to take your tablet for some entertainment on the go, and for finding your way around when you get there. Telstra has a 3-day pass for that, which costs $10 and gives you 1GB of data to play with. If you’re taking a two or three week annual holiday and want to stay in touch while you’re gone, the $30 or $50 pass might be for you, offering 3 to 5GB respectively with a month (or a year’s expiry).
Once the data pack runs out, of course, you stop paying for it, and you can renew to a different pack whenever you have the need. Just leave the SIM in your mobile device for next time. It’s a good idea, and with Telstra’s ultra-fast mobile broadband network, it’s a good way to stay in touch on the go.
As an added incentive to try one of these plans out, Telstra is offering a 3-month subscription to Presto when you try out one of their new mobile broadband passes.
Looks good. The 2 year long expiry might just sway me away from Optus.
Is it measured in KB or MB blocks? If a session is less than 1MB, is it rounded up?
Not sure, but If the session is measured in MB blocks, then yes its round up. ie used 512k and then END the session, its counted as 1MB.
Stay connected for 12 hours, use 48.8MB then its rounded up to 49MB.
$30 for 3GB is good value. Normally you only get 2GB for $30.
For the data only devices, which Hell$tra can happily flog at you, these plans are useful.
For your main Android or iObject devices, these plans are comprehensively and utterly useless.
These aren’t phone plans. They’re data only. They’re designed for tablets. Don’t even think about one of these sims in a phone. Telstra won’t sell you one for that. I’ve been using this service for years. It’s data only and it’s a decent improvement on what they have had until now.
Rip off, that’s all I can say. Went to same Asian country couple months ago, at the airport you can apply for a mobile number that comes with limited phone call and SMS and UNLIMITED data (3G), expires in 30 days. All these just for ~$40 AUD. Here in AU you can only go for the 2nd, 3rd line telcos to get cheaper call and data bundle, yet most of them still give you 1GB data for a month, what’s worse, social media such as FB no longer have free data usage, you are likely to pay extra at tge… Read more »
Can you make phonecalls and send SMS with those plans?
I’m led to believe not.
So unless I’m mistaken, for any one of these data plans to really be useful, you’d need to run it in parallel with your existing pre-paid mobile plan?
Well they’re advertising them as mobile data plans; they’re for tablets and mobile broadband sticks, not your primary mobile (unless you don’t use your mobile for calls or SMS).
These are data sims only. No phone calls or sms
Telstra’s “Things you need to know” seems to imply you can send sms.
“IN AUSTRALIA: Telstra Pre-Paid Mobile Broadband Data Passes can be used on Telstra Mobile Broadband devices or Telstra Pre-Paid SIM Starter Kits. Once you’ve used all your data, you can continue to use your recharge credit at the PAYG rate of $2/MB (charged per KB) in Australia. Recharge credit can be used on texts to standard Australian numbers,”