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VPNs for ad-blocking You’ll pay extra to be a Telstra customer, and in some cases this price difference is significant. But in return, you get access to Australia’s fastest mobile network, a huge customer support team, as well as plenty of exclusive offers and perks. Telstra is not for the budget-conscious, but if you keep your eye on its Telstra Deals page, you can find a solid bargain from time to time. At the time of writing, the most popular Telstra mobile plan is the $115 Extra Large Upfront SIM Plan, which comes with 180GB of data, 5G access, plus unlimited standard national talk and text. Across the entire Telstra range of phone plans, we’d argue that you needn’t choose a plan higher than the Small Upfront SIM Plan. There are phone plans with more data, of course, and you’ll need to bring your own phone (or grab one through Telstra), but this plan has everything you need at a price that won’t break the bank. If anything, 40GB of data per month is probably a tad excessive, but there are no smaller options available. That said, you’ll want to opt for at least the $65 Medium Upfront SIM Plan if you’re craving 5G speeds because the Small Plan doesn’t let you connect to the speedy new mobile technology. All of Telstra’s BYO Mobile Phone plans are offered with no lock-in contracts and if you’d like to add a new phone down the track, you don’t need to change plans, you just add monthly phone repayments to your bill. Here’s a look at the rest of Telstra’s BYO mobile plans: But to be honest, we probably wouldn’t choose Telstra for a Prepaid plan if value for money was a consideration. There are dozens of smaller mobile carriers offering better, cheaper options. Telstra Upfront plans can be bundled with a range of cutting-edge and recent smartphones, including the iPhone 12, Google Pixel 5, and the Samsung Galaxy S21. Telstra lets you opt to purchase a handset outright, or you can pay it off over time with 12-month or 24-month handset repayment terms. One of the better data-related perks for SIM-only plans is there are no excess data charges in Australia. This means if you burn through your max-speed data allowance, speeds are slowed to 1.5Mbps for the duration of your billing cycle. To help keep data usage even lower, Apple Music streaming is data-free and there’s unmetered use of selected sports streaming, too. Woolworths Mobile also runs on the Telstra network and tends to offer great perks, too. Check out their plans below in comparison to Telstra’s offering. While there aren’t any excess data charges on SIM Only plans, you can monitor your usage via the Telstra app, plus there’s a range of in-person stores and Telstra Plus perks for earning points and other benefits. Telstra support is impressive, but overall customer satisfaction isn’t as flash according to user-generated score on sites like Product Review and Trustpilot, even if the Google review fares better. In fairness, those score trends are relatively the same for Optus and Vodafone, too. Moose Mobile, Numobile, Pennytel and Tangerine are the only telcos that average above four out of five on these user-review websites. The Telstra Blue Tick is a way for Telstra to signify which handsets are superior for coverage based on its own internal testing. Not every phone is eligible, so this list is important if you feel like you need that boost in signal. Samsung phones are generally the most popular Blue Tick handsets, mostly because the Apple iPhones don’t earn the Blue Tick signification. The core of the Telstra network is known as the 4GX network and with the right device used in the right location, the network is capable of speeds up to 2Gbps (20 times faster than the NBN). In the real-world Telstra says its network will deliver speeds up to 300Mbps. This is fast enough to download a full-length HD movie from iTunes in just over two minutes. You also may have heard about a little thing called 5G. Telstra also runs one of the largest customer support teams in the mobile industry, and this costs money, too. You can call and chat to a support rep at all hours of the day, which is a service many of the smaller providers can’t replicate. There are Telstra Stores across Australia too, giving you a place to go and seek help when you need it. And lastly, it is probably just simple economics. Telstra, as a business, will charge as much as the market will bear. Despite being the most expensive service provider, Telstra maintains the largest share of customers. Until these customers flock to cheaper service providers, Telstra will keep its prices where they are.
