Mobile Internet

Wild1 · Senior Member

Mobile Internet

Cruising Granny · Guru

Bigpond! Only Bigpond, and nothing but Bigpond.
Only because they have the biggest and best coverage.
Telstra does have a prepaid, 10 GB, 12 month plan for $150. This is ample unless you download a lot of music and movies.
I would imagine Telstra coverage would be equivalent to Bigpond coverage in spite of their efforts to convince me they are not the same, or at least connected to each other.

Oh, welcome to GN, I hope you enjoy your stay. Tell us a little about yourself.

Turtle Trekers · Veteran Member

And a cheery welcome from us as well!!

As much as we hate to say so - Telstra. It has the best coverage for the very best part of the entire country and not just 95% (or thereabouts) of the population! It then all depends on whether you are on a contract or using pre-paid.

We have a Telstra T100 - prepaid - and use the handset as a modem to connect to the internet as well as making calls. Only one payment to Telstra and not two!

Louise and Alan

neilnruth · Guru

Welcome Wild1 to the forum. I've just gone through the same process of working out what to do. I realised we had 1gb of data on my husband's phone plan we weren't using each month. So we bought a prepaid LG phone with Telstra (from Dick Smith's - on special) - took the SIM card out of it and popped in my husband's SIM card. It has a WiFi Hotspot (Android) and so we can use it as our modem for the lap top. That's how I'm working tonight. 1GB is enough for us to check our mail, do our banking and sit on this forum for about an hour each night. And the front 'page' of the phone tells us how much we've used and how many days we have left. Only paying for one account. Brilliant.

Wild1 · Senior Member

Thank you CG - is that $150 a month or a year?

Wild1 · Senior Member

Hi Ruth, that sounds like a good idea, but I would need more than 1 GB as i plan to download movies to watch. I refuse to buy an expensive TV aerial for the crap it will receive. disbelief

Jennifer

Wild1 · Senior Member

And ..... a big hello and thanks to everyone for taking time to answer.

Jennifer

neilnruth · Guru

That's what we're all about!

pauline · Guru

Telstra, Telstra, Telstra............hate to say it also but is the only way to go, best coverage in this huge country and wherever you get phone you will almost always get the net.

gst · Senior Member

Telstra only plus I have a few shares in Telstra

Sheba · Guru

Wild1 wrote:
Thank you CG - is that $150 a month or a year?

A year Wild1. That's what I'll be getting when I finally hit the road.

Cheer,

Sheba.

aussietraveller · Guru

Hi Wild one and welcome to the forum,
I use my android phone as a modem as it has 1gb per month at a cost of $10.00 per month, I find this much more convenient as I can also access a number of options on my phone such as email and the web it also is more cost effective and I didn't have to buy a modem or worry about when it is going to expire, I use Telstra as they provide service in areas where other providers have nothing.

bill12 · Guru

If you are going bush, Telecoma is the only one to have.I get 4gig for about $39 a month , and have never run out.The turbo nextg mobile modem has a plug for an aerial, and work in fringe areas. I don,t like telstra , but they are the only one with coverage. Bill

Wild1 · Senior Member

Thanks Aussie T, I have been tossing that idea around too - anything to save money.

Wild1 · Senior Member

hi Bill, it seems that Telstra is hated by everyone, including me, but when it comes to safety, they're a necessary evil

BobnBev · Senior Member

Hi all, There is a $10 plan for 1 gig a month = $120 for 12 gig. over a year...

That comes on a phone plan and we use the phone as the modem..

With Telstra.....

Comebak-Wilson · Veteran Member

Yes Jennifer, there an over charging Shifty Santa man call telstra.. and yes he is the best for coverage.

If you are out of coverage and there is an Aborigional settlement close by, drive to the edge of town and there is SST: Shifty Santa tesltra..

Colin

Wild1 · Senior Member

Thanks Col, nice pair of Snapper. what is the connection to Santa Clause? Telstra/Bigpond doesn't give anything away.

PeterD · Guru

Wild1 wrote:
Thank you CG - is that $150 a month or a year?

CG said prepaid, that means you have 12 months to use that 10 GB.

Comebak-Wilson · Veteran Member

Dont know, sounded right at the time laughs...

milo · Guru

hi wild1, nice rig you got there , yeah telstra is the way to go for traveling around aussie land

heres a link to there latest mobile pricing plans,
http://go.bigpond.com/wireless/?ref=Net-Head-Int-Plans-Wireless

ps if you want to a way to down load movies ,best way at the moment would be thru itunes, or buy them at shops etc,

good luck

-- Edited by milo on Saturday 26th of May 2012 08:58:03 PM

Wild1 · Senior Member

Hey thanx Milo - for the complement and the info. I'm looking at buying a Samsung Y smartphone, its next G compatible and cheap at $129 (Telstra shop).

Jennifer

PeterD · Guru

Wild1 wrote:
Hi Ruth, that sounds like a good idea, but I would need more than 1 GB as i plan to download movies to watch.

Jennifer, Sorry I missed answering this in a timely manner. Hope you have not lashed out and invested in a prepaid service and still hope to download movies.

Movies take heaps out of your allowance. Have a look at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1906#faq5 - that site suggests "A 2 hour SD movie is about 1.5 GB, and a 2 hour HD movie is about 4 GB." That will destroy your $150 prepaid in double quick time. Ather suggestions of download size can be found at http://ask.metafilter.com/177347/What-size-is-the-average-movie-download-in-gb. Then there is the cost of them, again from the first link "Movies typically range from $14.99 for new releases to $9.99 for most other movies."

If you forget the Telstra offerings and go for a a Bigpond plan (yes there is two different arms of Telstra) you can get a lot of unmetered downloads - http://www.bigpond.com/unmetered/ I had a quick look and most of them seem to be $6 rental fee.

There are a lot of other "free" (as in unmetered) downloads like music and sport. A lot of them are not entirely free as you pay for the purchase or hire of the content. There are some free "free" content like news and weather, I use these rather than the TV station, newspapers and BOM. When you look at the BigPond usage meter you will see the graph line changes to yellow to show what unmetered usage is part of your total download.

I am on what is probably the average plan that travellers use - %50 /month for 4 GB (or $12.5 per GB.) That means I could rent movies far cheaper than I could download them from the iTunes Storeon any mobile broadband service. This gives a bit more info

This may change your intentions of not providing a TV antenna for your van. The choice of internet plans is now yours to cost out.

PeterD · Guru

milo wrote:
heres a link to there latest mobile pricing plans,
http://go.bigpond.com/wireless/?ref=Net-Head-Int-Plans-Wireless

Be aware of those prices. They only apply if you have additional Telstra qualifying services. If not then add $20 to the prices.

Wild1 · Senior Member

Wow, thank you Peter - now I'm really confused. No, I havent yet decided on anything, but still researching. You are a real bonus with your knowledge of these 'new fangled thangs'.

From what I've seen so far prices have increased and 4GB costs about $50 for a plan and $80 pre paid. With Telstra I can get Foxtel for $12 a month extra.

Jennifer

PeterD · Guru

Xennon wrote:

Just thinking of a measly 4GB or less per month makes me cringe! I am a bit of a net junkie so that is one of the big *adjustments* I need to come to terms with.

I did say 4 GB is the average used by travellers. You can get 15 GB for $100. If you are doing enough touristing you won't have time to download as much as when you are at home. If the 15 GB only lasts you 3 weeks you can still work at 60 kb/s for the last week or so without incurring extra expense (BigPond throtle the download speed rather than bill you extra.) I know of some miserly types that pay for 1 GB/month and are satisfied to download the bulk of their traffic at the slower speed.

-- Edited by PeterD on Tuesday 29th of May 2012 12:27:18 PM

Xennon · Veteran Member

omg! ... I'm gunna be in real trouble once I actually make the move and get mobile. I currently have a 150GB high speed cable connection at home and although I don't use it all every month, I do come close at times.

Just thinking of a measly 4GB or less per month makes me cringe! I am a bit of a net junkie so that is one of the big *adjustments* I need to come to terms with.

~Xen~

Sue - Steve Gazel · Veteran Member

Hi, yes Telstra, we have a mobile Usb stick for the laptop and find if you have phone coverage you also will have coverage on the laptop. It's fantastic as you can keep in contact with so many things, very handy for checking sites in advance, Google map, sending photos to friends the list goes on. One of the best investments we've done. Price wise we got ours bundled with home phone and mobile but there would be some better deals now.

Regards

Sue & Steve

Planning the next trip WHOOOOOO

Wild1 · Senior Member

Hi X, thanx for your reply. How on earth do you use so much data? I was flat out using 5gb per month. I see you are a newbie too, when do plan to hit the bitumen?

Jennifer

Wild1 · Senior Member

Hi Pete, please tell me where I can get 15GB for $15 dollars. The best I can do is $49 per month for 1.5 GB on a plan (BYO) with Telstra!