Belong, the Telstra-powered home ISP, is today preparing to enter the mobile telecommunications market offering SIM-only, data-centric plans on Telstra’s 4G network from this Sunday. The company says it will give customers an alternative to the traditional carriers operating in the Australian market.
Its plans are aimed at data-centric users who want a little bit more data to ensure they always remain connected. For example, on the $25 per month plan, you get 5GB date (plus 5GB sign on bonus data to use in the first month) to use each month and the $40 plan gets 15GB (with 15GB sign on bonus).
The plans include the ability to data-bank, which is a fancy term for the ability to roll over unused data month-to-month. Belong also has a neat trick in data gifting, allowing Belong users to gift data to other users.
You might want to watch out for extras though. You’ll need to pay an additional fee per month to can get Unlimited National Voice & Text ($5/month) and Unlimited International & National Voice & Text (to selected countries) is an extra $10/month. If you want these services you should check your options – that’s starting to bring the total monthly cost into range of other telcos, but it’s good to have the choice of how you’ll use the.
Belong’s Managing Director Antony de Jong says that mobile data is an essential part of everyday life, so Belong is providing generous data inclusions as the starting point for its plans.
“Price savvy Australians don’t like paying for things they don’t use which is why we’ve been very deliberate in our approach of offering calling and text services as add-ons, turning conventional SIM-only plans on their head by providing mobile plans that just include data.
You can have a look at what is and isn’t included in Belong Mobile’s plan below:
“In the spirit of making it really easy to use the Belong mobile service, customers will be able to download our new Belong app to self manage their accounts, gift data to another Belong mobile customer and purchase or cancel any extra features as needed” Antony stated.
Belong mobile SIM packs will be available to purchase from this Sunday October 1 through the Belong website or through retailers such as Coles and JB Hi-Fi stores, with the company stating that more retailers will be added soon.
The company will be using Telstra’s 3G and 4G networks, though from what we understand it will not use the Telstra 4GX 700 MHz network.
If you’re after a SIM card for mobile connectivity that’s mainly focused on providing data, then you might want to check out the Belong website from this Sunday.
Are Belong’s plans making a compelling case? Tell us in the comments.
Also available at selected large format Officeworks stores
15gb bonus data! Sounds like the prepaid race is heating up.