Telstra more than doubles prepaid data quotas

Mar 15, 2011 1:54 PM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Readies sub-$100 smartphone.

Telstra has significantly raised the data quotas on its prepaid phone plans with high-end products now carrying a 4GB monthly allowance.

The telco revealed today a series of revisions to its Cap+ and Weekend+ prepaid plans.

While there were increases in the amount of calls that could be made under the revised plans, it was the data quotas that would be of particular interest to smartphone users.

Whereas the old plans topped out at 1GB of allowance, the new plans boasted up to 4GB a month.

The entry-level Cap+ recharge ($30) went from 150MB to 400MB of data a month while the $40 recharge increased from 300 MB to 800 MB.

For customers willing to recharge higher amounts, the $60 recharge went from 600 MB to 3GB while the $100 recharge went from 1GB to 4GB.

On the Weekend+ prepaid products, the increases were even more marked: $50 recharge (100MB to 2GB), $80 (500MB to 3GB) and $100 (1GB to 4GB).

Telstra also said it would launch an Android smartphone this month that cost less than $100, firmly targeting prepaid users.

Telstra more than doubles prepaid data quotas

3 comments in this discussion

"Warning for newbies: A low-end smartphone is unlikely to have Wi-Fi capability, so you won't be able to roam to your home or office wireless network to get cheap data and high bandwidth. The ABS ..."

By umbria

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telstra, prepaid, data, quotas, broadband, smartphone, nextg, mobile

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Comments: 3

ITnovice Mar 15, 2011 5:01 PM	Telstra's $100 Android phone will probably be made by either ZTE or Huawei - not great. But if you only pay $100 you are going to only get a low spec phone anyway. My guess is that Telstra is hoping many of the people who currently just make calls and texts in the lower end of the market will switch to their cheap Android phone and start consuming more data and making Telstra more money. Glad to see them boosting their monthly data allowances.
Johnny Mar 16, 2011 1:13 PM	ITnovice is right on the money there, telstra defiantly wants to make affordable a phone that is capable of consuming data. This is why they may even make a loss on selling the phone (probably not knowing telstra, but maybe) and then subsidize that with the fact a lot more people are able to use data.
umbria Mar 22, 2011 3:21 PM	Warning for newbies: A low-end smartphone is unlikely to have Wi-Fi capability, so you won't be able to roam to your home or office wireless network to get cheap data and high bandwidth. The ABS reports that from December 2009 to June 2010, mobile broadband accounts increased 22% but mobile broadband data usage dropped 2%. This is because smartphones and tablets use local Wi-Fi wherever possible to avoid expensive wireless rates for their data usage. When 93% of Australian premises have NBN fibre, 99% of mobile device data will come via local Wi-Fi sharing a fixed fibre service. So wireless generally will work much better, because fibre has done the heavy data lifting.