Telstra $25 Casual Plan Increase to $40

Same here. Mine went up to $20 then back down to $10.

???

Tony, even yours makes me wonder.Mine has always just stayed on the $10 figure ["calls extra"].

Different plans I suppose but some googling has revealed that people are now complaining of their accelerate plans are increasing. However there seems to be no consistency with the increases. I've just checked out the price for iridium plans, this is still good value compared. + the extra benefit of having a Telstra as well as Optus.

Yeah, I don't understand it either Zippo. There was a lot of talk here about it, and I looked. $20. I just accepted that was the new charge then one day I checked the bill and it was back to $10.

FIIK but I'm not complaining.

Mine is still only $10 pm but I also have two other mobiles on $50 pm plans.
I don’t know whether that makes a difference.
Ross

I doubt it, Ross. Apart from a "seasonal" Telstra pre-paid SIM I have (thankfully) no other business whatsoever with Telstra - so they aren't cross-subsidising my $10 service from any activity of mine.

Michelle, that's why we - who normally (in the 'burbs) use Belong (Telstra wholesale network) - have a spare number sitting in a spare phone parked on Amaysim (Optus) that comes in handy when we go out back [and that's NOT a dunny in the back yard as some have suggested!].

When Telstra set up their "wholesale" demarcation it was modelled on Optus coverage at the time. Their thinking was that anyone wanting more would need to move up to full ("retail") Telstra and they would reap the $$$. But they seemed to chisel that demarcation in stone, and the world as well as Optus have moved on. There are now so many Optus-only localities out there, that Telstra are having to play catch-up, all the while the resold Telstra (Boost excluded) is lagging per that original footprint.

I recall a few years back rocking in to Oodnadatta and our Telstra service was a no-go. Saw a couple hammering away on their phones. Yep, Optus with their satellite-backed trial site. Great, we had coverage on the spare phone.

So our outfit is 2xBelong (in our dailies), 1xAmaysim/Optus in a spare, and a fresh Telstra pre-paid (real Telstra) in another phone just for the duration. Four cellphones for the two of us, plus the Iridium per the topic.

Those sims will not work in Iridium...only Telstra Post Paid. We usually have 2 Optus, 1 Telstra which doubles in the Sat.

Dean, our satphone has it's own dedicated SIM - the subject of your thread. I think by now most on EO have learned that to use a Telstra SIM in an Iridium phone, it needs to be post-paid and have international roaming enabled.

Re having a SIM doing double-duty and swapping. Not for me. The Iridium sets use a standard SIM while most contemporary cellphones use a nanoSIM (although some still use the micro), so swapping and fiddling with an adapter is not something I'd contemplate for an emergency phone.

My compromise of an "urban" SIM service plus a dedicated SIM at $10/month for the Iridium is more cost-effective than a single $40/mo plan.

Yes Zippo mine is for my sat only also. One + for this plan is the inclusion of texts, that's really handy for outback non-emergency communication.

You need to choose a dual SIM phone very very carefully.

Many if not all dual SIM phones are an overseas Spec,, Eg Kogan's ones. Many do not have the full range of Australian bands, especially on the second SIM. In particular, Telstra's 3G 850 Mhz and 4G 700 Mhz bands are uncommon and not supported by a large number of these phones, but they are the 2 bands Telstra use in the country. So while you may have a Telstra SIM in a dual SIM phone ( or other overseas spec phones) you will not get any reception, even if you are standing next to a Telstra tower for many phones.

I would not advise getting a dual SIM phone unless you know what to look for. It's a false coverage promise much of the time. You need a full range of bands for each carrier you use or you get worse coverage.

I'm on my 2nd dual SIM phone. Love them. Current is Samsung A50, previous one Samsung A5. Yep we bought the international models to get the features we wanted. Got the 1st from Kogan, the recent one from Toby Deals. David and I have one each. Never an issue.

How did dual sim phones end up in the discussion ?

In addition to Boobook's warnings above, if you intend to buy a dual SIM phone and you use an SD card for memory expansion, be aware that some phones use the second SIM slot for the SD card.

You have to remove the memory expansion to use a second SIM, which may or may not be significant for you. It is for me as that's where my back-up maps are.

Samsung S7 is one such. Dunno about later models.

I hate to say it Michelle but if this Samsung A50 from Kogan is the one you are referring to, then it is an example of a phone that does not have very good coverage support in Australia. Kogan import these and grey market them. They are not designed for Australian frequencies.

According to the specifications on the Kogan website, it only supports GSM in SIM slot 2. All GSM has been shut down now.

In the 1st slot, if you were with Telstra you would get 3G 850mhz ( mostly country coverage) and (2100 Mhz - ( mostly city coverage) Both are closing in 2 years. As to 4G, you will only get 2600 ( a handful of sites in small areas of Brisbane and Perth), and 1800Mhz ( inner capital city areas and a few major rural cities).

Since about 2015 nearly all new sites are 700 Mhz - Telstra market this as 4GX. This is their 'go-to' for country coverage since then. That phone can not receive Telstra's most important band for country coverage.

2G Network GSM850, GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2
3G Network B1(2100), B2(1900), B5(850), B8(900) - SIM 1 only
4G Network FDD: B1(2100), B3(1800), B5(850), B7(2600), B8(900), B20(800) | TDD: B38(2600), B40(2300), B41(2500) - SIM 1 only

As a side note, Kogan market these as compatible with all Australian network providers. That's a trick. Sure it is compatible with PARTS of the networks, but not ALL of the network.

You'd be way better off with a standard, recent blue tick telstra phone. And since SIM 2 is now unusable it's effectively a cripples 1 SIM phone now anyway. :-(

Ok Dean, I didn't realise your current Telstra plan was for a satphone! I thought you were just lamenting the cost of your phone plan increasing and contemplating going satphone...

Tony it is this one

NETWORK
GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900
WCDMA: 850, 900, 1700, 1900, 2100
LTE: 700, 800, 850, 900, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2600

That Kogan link does not even tell you the model number - I would not trust their specifications list nor there product listing when it does not actually show the real model number of the device.

That one looks much better than the Kogan one I saw, and looks like it has the full set. Certainly for Telstra.

:-)

It's really important to check the bands that the dual sims Support or don't support given they are mostly grey imports. It's also checking the warranty. Most Phone manufacturers won't support a warranty either.

It needs a lot of scrutiny.

Not only do they not support warranty, they will not provide ANY level of service to a grey import.

The telco will help with telco issues, but as far as the hardware is concerned, you're on your own.

GSM Arena is the go-to site to get all your phone specifications, including which models are for which countries.

The website gives the number and frequencies of bands that each phone operates on.

There can be more than dozen "varieties" of each phone model, each one is designed for specific areas/countries.

GSM Arena

Cheers, Ron.

Boost won't work with a Sat phone though.

Rocco, I've found out after 45 years with Telstra, their phone plans and bill calculations are aligned with Uranus, and they would often send you into orbit.

Looking back over my phone records to the early-1990's, it amazes me the pea-and-thimble trickery they constantly indulged in, to get additional money out of you, on post-paid plans.

I now utilise a cheap Telstra pre-paid plan on a constant basis, and don't get bill shocks. It costs me a dollar a day and I get a large amount of free calls plus a small amount of data.

If I start using excessive data for that day, I get an immediate warning that I'm going to exceed my data for that day, and this reduces my remaining credit by a day if I use more than a day's data allowance.

You can still get "long life plus" SIM cards for $20 that last for 6 mths. But you pay 30c a min for calls and 10c MB for any data used, if you start to make calls and use data.

And of course, in the best Telstra fashion, the $20 is an "introductory offer", and any future recharge costs you $30.

Telstra offers

Cheers, Ron.

Following on from Ron . .
I am currently enjoying a pre-paid option with Telstra Retail that a kind shop assistant put us onto to overcome the ALDI SIM failing at Barcaldine (& Jerico), Outback QLD. $150 for six months 60gb data.
https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/prepaid-mobiles/offers-and-rates
I see there is a $300 for 150gb 12 mth option too.

(ALDI is $249 for 12 months 160gb data). Both have unlimited SMS, MMS and Au phones, mobile included. We continued on even more remotely and both SIMs gave us very poor reception, and our Optus SIM worked near some mining sites and aborigine settlements where Telstra was not. Many connections only lasted about 3km despite us having an external antenna and (Telstra) amplifier. Atrocious coverage really. Locals generally really unhappy about it too (especially at and all around Boorooloola, NT - hardly a small town - 24hr outages frequent, then very intermittent).

We had used ALDI as we had been co-erced into believing that Boost did not have full coverage, and that ALDI did!! Perhaps Boost has changed to being the best that Telstra can offer? They do not claim to on their web site as far as I can see.

Anyway, thought it might help readers to know that there are fairly competitive Telstra pre-paid options to consider now.

Cheers, Jim

Jim & Trudy,

"We had used ALDI as we had been co-erced into believing that Boost did not have full coverage, and that ALDI did!! "

In the old money, you were had. That's totally backwards. As has been mentioned numerous times, Boost is the ONLY reseller of Telstra cellular services to have access to their entire network.

As you have also discovered, there are pockets of Optus-only out there so if practical it pays to keep an Optus capability too.

Wot Zippo Sed.

As usual, we have our brainiacs in Canberra to thank for an unusable mobile system.

The Black spot rollout awards sites to each of the 3 carriers who bid for the lowest hand out at each black spot. Telstra get around 70%, Optus get around 25% band Vodafone even get a look in when the other two can't be bothered.
As a result, you need to swap and switch SIMS to see if there is any coverage. It's a mess only a Canberra bureaucrat could think is working.

In the latest round, Optus won Chambers Pillar. They have no other coverage for 1000km other than Alice and Ayres Rock. Telstra lost out but have coverage all over that area.

BTW don't expect magic from an external antenna or repeater box. You may get that coverage you seek 3 minutes earlier than with a good blue tick phone whilst driving into a small town with a cell. Next to useless except in marginal areas like caravan parks at the edge of town where you are parked up for a while.

Also don't forget, if you have a recent 4G phone, where you got the phone from Telstra and are with Telstra or Boost, you can use any wifi hotspot to make and receive calls. Make sure you have VoWiFI turned on.

Yes, the requirements are simple enough. A SIM on a Telstra PLAN (i.e. post-paid) with international roaming enabled will operate an Iridium satphone.

Without international roaming enabled it won't work.

Pre-paid won't work.

Boost won't work.

All the other Telstra resellers - who are on the Telstra wholesale network - won't work.

Also keep in mind if you only intend on using it for extreme emergencies (i.e. dialing 000) you dont need a sim card - just a sat phone (that supports this feature).

Cheers
Greg