Telstra leaves Boost to chase quota-hungry customers

Telstra will not chase the prepaid market serviced by mobile virtual network operator Boost Mobile, because it believes the access to 4G data speeds and other add-ons it provides its customers more than compensates for the difference in included calls and data quota.

Telstra... No plans to cannibalise MVNO partner.

Director of prepaid products and services, Stuart Bird, said in a live chat with customers today the telco had "no current plans" to match deals such as Boost's $40 UNLTD deal, which provides unlimited talk, text and SMS, and 3GB of data, on a 30-day expiry.

Boost runs as an MVNO on Telstra's 3G mobile network, but its customers cannot access 4G services and value-adds, which are reserved for direct Telstra customers.

"We have no current plans to match the [Boost] offer on Telstra given Telstra prepaid customers get exclusive access to all of our premium 4G services including HD voice and faster data speeds," Bird said.

Telstra offers $550 call credit and 600MB of data on its $40 cap encore plan, which also includes free talk and text between 6pm and 6am. Other prepaid plans on Telstra's own network at the same price point offer 300 minutes, texts and megabytes of data respectively.

Telstra introduced high definition voice on its Next G network in mid-2011. The technology is seen as a way to improve voice calls before general availability of voice-over LTE (VoLTE).

The incumbent also has over 3000 4G LTE-enabled base stations in Australia, having surpassed the milestone today.