To everyone’s collective dismay, mobile data is becoming more expensive over time, rather than cheaper as we might have expected it to. Every time the telco’s revise their plans. the data allowances tumble. Just look at what happened to Aldi Mobile this week.
So, you might be surprised to learn that there is a hidden gem of a plan for data-hungry smartphone owners, and even more surprised to learn that it comes from Telstra: Australia’s number 1 telco in size, but almost never in price.
Telstra’s Encore Cap is one of the telco’s five Prepaid plan offers, and on the surface it doesn’t look terribly remarkable. This is because Telstra don’t clearly explain on its website how the offer works.
Take the $50 recharge. When you activate this at the beginning of your month, Telstra gives you $950 to spend on calls and messages, a stingy 800MB data and $50 credit. This extra $50 credit will be used on extra calls and data if you go over your allowance or you can spend it on Plus Packs.
And this is where things gets interesting. If you click on the available Plus Packs, you’ll see that for $49 you can add an extra 3GB of data for 30-days. If data isn’t what your after, you could also use the same credit adding 500 extra SMS messages or 150-minutes worth of extra talk-time to the plan.
The catch is that you can’t automate this recharge process and every month you have to log in and add a new Encore Cap recharge and then add the Plus Pack you want. But for those who can be bothered, the data is there for the taking.
This is how it stacks up:
| Telco | Plan | Cost | Calls | Data | Network |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Telstra | Encore Cap | $50 | $950 | 3.8GB | Telstra 4G |
| Yatango* | Prepaid | $50 | 1000 mins | 5GB | Optus 3G |
| Aldi Mobile | Unlimited Pack | $35 | Unlimited | 2.5GB | Telstra 3G |
| Amaysim | Unlimited Prepaid | $39.90 | Unlimited | 3GB | Optus 3G |
| Boost Mobile | ULTD | $40 | Unlimited | 2GB | Telstra 3G+ |
| Vaya | Power Plan | $52 | Unlimited | 3GB | Optus 4G |
| Optus | Prepaid Social | $50 | Unlimited | 2.5GB | Optus 4G |
A few things to note about the comparison above.
- Only Telstra, Vaya and Optus offer 4G network speeds.
- Yatango plans are customisable. The example above does not include any SMS.
- The $950 call credit in the Encore Cap plan equals 921 2-minute calls.
It gets even better if you can afford to take the $70 and $100 Encore Cap options. On the highest level you get $2000 worth of calls and 3GB data PLUS you can buy two $49 data packs with your credit and add a further 6GB of data for the month.
What do you think? Do you know of a better prepaid option for data? Let us know in the comments below.
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