Telstra to stop kilobyte-charging on prepaid wireless

Telstra planned to revamp its prepaid wireless broadband plans next month.

The new plans start October 21, according to the text of a brief email sent to some customers this week that surfaced on the Whirlpool broadband forums.

A change would see the telco charge by the megabyte, rather than users being charged for each kilobyte transferred.

"This change will bring us in line with the market," a Telstra spokesman told iTnews.

Competitor Optus charged prepaid mobile broadband users "in 10 MB increments".

Telstra's current prepaid mobile broadband website said: "Your data is charged per kilobyte so you only pay for what you use".

Telstra's spokesman said the changes would "have little impact on most customers [because] we will be introducing improved recharge values and a wider choice of expiry periods on some plans".

The new plans will be announced soon.