Telstra’s recent changes to how it charges for mobile plans has introduced a new $15 5GB Data Plan that is worth considering for low monthly data tablet and mobile broadband customers.
It could be a great option for an elderly person who just wants to use the internet to read the news, get emails and access Centrelink, MyGov etc online.
Since Telstra now allows hardware to be paid for over time, this data plan could be paired with a Telstra 4GX WI-FI Pro mobile broadband modem for a repayment of $3.33/month for 36 months.
However it has to be used in a tablet or mobile broadband modem, if used in a phone the sim for this data plan would cost a lot of money for calls and texts — unless it was used as a second SIM for data only.
In the past a Telstra plan with low data inclusion would have been a terrible idea for a young member of the family to set up for their older relatives. However since Telstra now doesn’t charge excess data fees now across all it’s postpaid plans, you can be safe in the knowledge that anyone you recommend the new $15 5GB data plan to won’t get bill shock. Instead after they use up their 5GB data allocation per month at full speed, they’ll be shaped to 1.5Mbit/s for the rest of the month.
1.5mbit sounds really slow as an Internet access speed but because shaping kicks in only after a few seconds the performance for loading a webpage or downloading a few emails should be quite decent.
While you clearly couldn’t recommend this plan for watching high definition or 4K streaming services, if the connection isn’t being used for anything else then watching a standard definition quality video should work okay even after the connection has been shaped. This is because during the first few seconds of playback before the connection gets shaped, enough of the video will be able to be buffered to allow smooth playback at 480P or 720P.
As a bonus this low-cost plan still includes Telstra’s unmetered full speed streaming of the sports that they sponsor (AFL, AFLW, NRL, Netball and the Hyundai A-League — Excludes NRL Grand Final and State of Origin. AFL, AFLW and NRL live games are limited to a 7” viewing size).
It also includes data-free music streaming of Apple Music if you’re a subscriber and Free Telstra Air Wi-Fi if you’re often near one of those locations.
For more details about Telstra data plans visit their website.