Given how important the mobile phone system is to nomads this forum *really* should have a sticky thread or section dedicated to it.
Peatop: your point on Optus/Telstra is well made and indeed in some bush areas Optus have the better coverage as they took up much of the work on the government's "Black Spots" programme as Telstra didn't see enough return.
An Optus plan which is well worth looking at for most of us is their Flex plan; this costs $1 per day for 1GB data and unlimited calls/SMS but, and this is the nice bit, it may be switched on or off on a daily basis so you only pay for the days upon which you activate it. So if you are in a spot where Telstra is poor put your Optus SIM into the phone and check how good the Optus signal is, if it's OK then activate the SIM and it'll cost $1 per day until you deactivate it and data rolls over. Frankly, for travellers, it's crazy *not* to have one. NB. there is no cost for the time the SIM is not activated.
Great idea bout the Mobile 'Sticky'. I hope that Cindy does it.
I was looking for am Optus based SIM only plan that was similar to the Boost $150/80Gig/12mths for our second phone, to use in \situations with good Optus & poor Telstra.
But I took the plunge this week & ordered a $170/100g/12m Boost.
Might just get one of the Optus Flex Sims.
Thanks for the heads up .... Soo much choice out there.
Whenarewethere said
09:47 AM Oct 15, 2021
We are both on $150/80g/12m Boost prepay. We don't stream so plenty of data for us.
JeffRae said
10:47 AM Oct 15, 2021
dorian wrote:
JeffRae wrote:
Changing your DNS to Cloudflare or Google will also unblock a lot of the web sites that our government block access too.
Just pointing out that by changing your DNS you may inadvertently end up on a site that is blacklisted by our government
Buzz Lightbulb said
03:25 PM Oct 15, 2021
oldbloke wrote:
Well, willy weather has decided it doesn't like it. Not working.
Can anyone suggest an alternative to willy weather? I don't like BOM BTW. Internet ATM does seem a lot better.
Just as a matter of interest why don't you like the BOM weather app?
I used to use PocketWeather. The interface was really good but then it became unsupported.
peatop said
05:53 PM Oct 15, 2021
Again thank Mike for that information, I still haven't decided where to go as far as mobile is concerned, my current plan runs out in April but If I head past the Vic/NSW border before then (and hope I do) then I have now issues just getting another simm and paying the Kogan one out.
There used to be dual simm phones do they still make them?
on the weather app front BOM provides almost all data used by other meteorologist, however it is how they interpret it, is of what really concerns us, and BOM being a gov dep you need sharp scissors to cut the red tape and a uni degree to understand the BS, there are lots of good apps and web sites for weather but it all depends on what inf you want, myself I just use willy for a quick up to date forecast for onshore but if I'm heading offshore in my kayak I have several I can choose from, and for camping I tend to use the same system, willy gives me an idea and the others tell me if my idea is good or bad.
oldbloke said
09:27 PM Oct 15, 2021
Buzz Lightbulb wrote:
oldbloke wrote:
Well, willy weather has decided it doesn't like it. Not working.
Can anyone suggest an alternative to willy weather? I don't like BOM BTW. Internet ATM does seem a lot better.
Just as a matter of interest why don't you like the BOM weather app?
I used to use PocketWeather. The interface was really good but then it became unsupported.
Its OK I spose but WW has 2 things I like and use a fair bit,
1 Tides
2 Wind direction shown as a line graph
3 Sunrise and sunset times are easy to spot at well.
WW still will not work on the mobile unless I turn off the DNS app. Could be because I'm also running duckduckgo Not sure. But have decided to run with what I have.
I've tried the one suggested and a couple of others. either heaps of adverts that duckduckgo cannot block or doesn't have 1,2 & 3
And yes,,, thanks Mike Its certainly improved.
dorian said
07:13 AM Oct 16, 2021
I didn't load CloudFlare's Warp (my browser has its own VPN), but I changed my primary DNS server to 1.1.1.1.
For my backup DNS I opted to use my ISP's default primary DNS server rather than CloudFlare's backup.
Buzz Lightbulb said
10:20 AM Oct 16, 2021
Willy Weather's tides don't work for me. It requires Google Play Services which I don't have for privacy reasons.
BOM now has tides though not in graphical form.
Pocket Weather was really, really good. It showed everything: UV index, tides, rain, temperature, wind and direction, swell height and direction, sunrise and sunset and maybe some others that I can't remember, all on a single graph with hourly values for a whole week. One could easily switch on and off which things to display and one could move each individual graph up or down by long pressing on the graph and sliding it. The settings were then saved for the next session. The radar was on a different tab which is reasonable.
I've complained to BOM about how bad their interface was and they did add a few things. They sent me a Google Play Store account to test their prototype but of course I couldn't access it without Google Play Services.
I'm just one squeaky wheel but if a bunch of us grey nomads complained then maybe BOM would listen more and we could get a decent interface. If anyone is interested I could create a different topic to discuss this?
Stewart said
04:25 PM Oct 16, 2021
Woow i installed cloudflare and what a hugh improvement to web browsing. Also all my apps WW Banking etc still work. Awesome thanks for the tip. Cheers Stewart.
Stewart said
04:27 PM Oct 16, 2021
Forgot to add i am with Bňost. Cheers Stewart
PeterX said
08:14 PM Oct 18, 2021
This page has some interesting information about drops in mobile phone charges
Remember bill shock? If you are on a good, new mobile plan, excess data charges are now a thing of the past.
The big telcos choose to slow your speed when you hit your data cap on post-paid plans, rather than charge you extra.
Many providers have also scrapped the expiry date on your data.
About a dozen now offer data banking. Capped data banking allows you to roll over up to 300GB of unused data.
Unlimited data banking now offered by the likes of amaysim, Belong, Aldi Mobile and Telstra on pre-paid plans means that if you do not use
all your data in one month, it gets added to next month and continues to accumulate as long as you stay with the provider.
Craig1 said
08:44 PM Oct 18, 2021
Be careful on the "slowed data " with Telstra. Recently ran out of data at home and the offered 256kb will not work these days. Just times out, even when only trying to log in with Telstra acount.
oldbloke said
03:31 PM Oct 19, 2021
Soo, I discovered cloudflare has an option to "exclude" selected apps in the settings. As a result willy weather is now working fine. :)
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Leaked_Australian_blacklist_reveals_banned_sites
I wouldn't want to visit those sites, anyway.
Great idea bout the Mobile 'Sticky'. I hope that Cindy does it.
I was looking for am Optus based SIM only plan that was similar to the Boost $150/80Gig/12mths for our second phone, to use in \situations with good Optus & poor Telstra.
But I took the plunge this week & ordered a $170/100g/12m Boost.
Might just get one of the Optus Flex Sims.
Thanks for the heads up .... Soo much choice out there.
We are both on $150/80g/12m Boost prepay. We don't stream so plenty of data for us.
Just pointing out that by changing your DNS you may inadvertently end up on a site that is blacklisted by our government
Just as a matter of interest why don't you like the BOM weather app?
I used to use PocketWeather. The interface was really good but then it became unsupported.
Again thank Mike for that information, I still haven't decided where to go as far as mobile is concerned, my current plan runs out in April but If I head past the Vic/NSW border before then (and hope I do) then I have now issues just getting another simm and paying the Kogan one out.
There used to be dual simm phones do they still make them?
on the weather app front BOM provides almost all data used by other meteorologist, however it is how they interpret it, is of what really concerns us, and BOM being a gov dep you need sharp scissors to cut the red tape
and a uni degree to understand the BS, there are lots of good apps and web sites for weather but it all depends on what inf you want, myself I just use willy for a quick up to date forecast for onshore but if I'm heading offshore in my kayak I have several I can choose from, and for camping I tend to use the same system, willy gives me an idea and the others tell me if my idea is good or bad.
Its OK I spose but WW has 2 things I like and use a fair bit,
1 Tides
2 Wind direction shown as a line graph
3 Sunrise and sunset times are easy to spot at well.
WW still will not work on the mobile unless I turn off the DNS app. Could be because I'm also running duckduckgo Not sure. But have decided to run with what I have.
I've tried the one suggested and a couple of others. either heaps of adverts that duckduckgo cannot block or doesn't have 1,2 & 3
And yes,,, thanks Mike Its certainly improved.
For my backup DNS I opted to use my ISP's default primary DNS server rather than CloudFlare's backup.
Willy Weather's tides don't work for me. It requires Google Play Services which I don't have for privacy reasons.
BOM now has tides though not in graphical form.
Pocket Weather was really, really good. It showed everything: UV index, tides, rain, temperature, wind and direction, swell height and direction, sunrise and sunset and maybe some others that I can't remember, all on a single graph with hourly values for a whole week. One could easily switch on and off which things to display and one could move each individual graph up or down by long pressing on the graph and sliding it. The settings were then saved for the next session. The radar was on a different tab which is reasonable.
I've complained to BOM about how bad their interface was and they did add a few things. They sent me a Google Play Store account to test their prototype but of course I couldn't access it without Google Play Services.
I'm just one squeaky wheel but if a bunch of us grey nomads complained then maybe BOM would listen more and we could get a decent interface. If anyone is interested I could create a different topic to discuss this?
www.brisbanetimes.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/upgrade-your-phone-plan-or-risk-falling-behind-20211015-p590ci.html
It seems not to be paywalled.
EXAMPLE
Remember bill shock? If you are on a good, new mobile plan, excess data charges are now a thing of the past.
The big telcos choose to slow your speed when you hit your data cap on post-paid plans, rather than charge you extra.
Many providers have also scrapped the expiry date on your data.
About a dozen now offer data banking. Capped data banking allows you to roll over up to 300GB of unused data.
Unlimited data banking now offered by the likes of amaysim, Belong, Aldi Mobile and Telstra on pre-paid plans means that if you do not use
all your data in one month, it gets added to next month and continues to accumulate as long as you stay with the provider.