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Telecommunications service provider Optus has unveiled new monthly pre-paid plans featuring unlimited voice calls and texting, as well as a data rollover system, which will come into effect from July 5.
The new plans range from AU$30 to AU$60 and also include allowances for limited international calling. The data rollover feature will allow users to keep any unused data from month to month, up to a total of 10GB.
Virgin Australia was the first mobile service provider to offer data rollover locally. The Virgin offering allowed you to take any left over data allowance into the following month, basically adding it as a bonus on top of the usual limit. The Optus take allows you keep multiple months of data allowance until you hit that 10GB cap, as long as you continue to recharge your account.
Tim Cowan, director of mobile marketing at Optus, said that 82 percent of prepaid users didn’t exhaust their data allowances in a month.
“So, for example, I could save up some data allowance each month until I had quite a lot ready to use over a Christmas holiday,” said Cowan.
The new plans also have limited Extras Credit which covers international calls, roaming and premium services. Noting that around a third of Optus pre-paid customers make international calls, Cowan said that the AU$5 Extras Credit on the AU$30 pre-paid tier could cover “250 minutes of calls to Singapore or even around 150 minutes to China.”
Pre-paid customers account for 44 percent of the accounts across all Optus properties, including Virgin, as well as MVNOs using the Optus network, such as Amaysim and TPG.
Plan Details
AU$30 recharge: Unlimited calls to Australian landlines and mobiles, along with 13/1300 numbers. Unlimited nation SMS and MMS. Data allowance is 1.5GB with AU$5 of Extras Credit.
AU$45 recharge: Same as above with 3.5GB of data and AU$10 Extras Credit.
AU$60 recharge: Likewise, with 6GB of data and AU$15 of Extras Credit.
