Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Prepaid mobile plan in Australia for travelers

When I travel most of the times I tend to use Wi-Fi but some times you need to rely on roaming and that single usage can make you poorer by few $. Couple of hours ago I landed in Sydney and Thanks for the lesson learned in India,  I explored whether I can purchase a prepaid SIM for Data. To my surprise Optus is offering a fantastic deal which is 2$ a day deal. So it goes like for AUD 2 you'll get unlimited data, voice & SMS (voice & SMS in Australia only). This is much cheaper compared to any roaming subscription or bridge subscription.
Ofcourse the inconvinience of using 2 mobile phones is there but who cares. I always carry two phones for biz & personal purposes. All I need to do is swap my SIM cards

There are total 3 mobile stores in Sydney airport (2 from Optus + 1 from Vodafone). In total I paid AUD12 for 5 days unlimited data. By the way I am not naive to believe it's 'real' unlimited but a speed throttled plan but as long as it serves my purpose of push mail, occasional VoIP, Skype, Googel Voice and Maps, Facebook that's more than enough.

A good website comparing various plans
http://prepaidplans.com.au/2009/05/quicksearch-prepaid-broadband/#Sim%20Only

Boostmobile, amaysim all are MVNOs and offers monthly packs. If you intend to stay for longer period or frequently visit the country then you may subscribe to monthly plans.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the mention. Going prepaid means you only need a Passport to buy a sim card, monthly plans require a little more (usually some form of credit check). You can buy the sims mentioned above from most convenience stores. A sim card is usually just a few dollars you can then recharge for the amount that suits you.

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  2. Always welcome. Your site helped me to find and I should thank you for that :)

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