It’s been over 6 years since my last post comparing 3G data plans in Australia.
I’m currently using Aldi Mobile [1]. They have a $15 package which gives 3G of data and unlimited calls and SMS in Australia for 30 days, and a $25 package that gives 20G of data and unlimited international calls to 15 unspecified countries (presumably the US and much of the EU). It’s on the Telstra network so has good access all around Australia. I’m on the grandfathered $20 per 30 days plan which gives me more than 3G of data (not sure how much but I need more than 3G) while costing less than the current offer of $25.
| Telco | Cost | Data | Network | Calling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aldi | $15/30 days | 3G | Telstra | Unlimited National |
| Aldi | $25/30 days | 20G | Telstra | Unlimited International |
| Dodo [2] | $5/month | none | Optus | Unlimited National + Unlimited International SMS |
| Moose [3] | $8.80/month | 1G | Optus | 300min national calls + Unlimited National SMS |
| AmaySIM [4] | $10/month | 2G | Optus | Unlimited National |
| Kogan [5] | $135/year | 100G | Vodafone | Unlimited National |
| Kogan | $180/year | 180G | Vodafone | Unlimited National |
| Dodo | $20/month | 12G | Optus | Unlimited National + Unlimited International SMS + 100mins International talk |
In the above table I put Aldi at the top because Telstra has the best network. If you want to use a mobile phone anywhere in Australia then Telstra is the best choice. If you only care about city areas then the other networks are usually good enough. The rest of the services are in order of price, cheapest first. For every service I only mentioned the offerings that are price competitive.
I didn’t list the offerings that are larger than these. There are offerings of 300G/year or more, but most people don’t need them. Every service in this table has more expensive offerings with more data.
Please inform me in the comments of any services I missed.
Beware, Aldi and others only “use parts of the Telstra 3G and 4G network”, so the coverage might be less than regular Telstra. Boost (https://boost.com.au/), however, is Telstra’s own brand and uses their full network. The plans (e.g. $20 5GB / 28 days) are competitive too.
Thanks for pointing that out. However when using Aldi I generally haven’t had any connectivity problems and have had good signal in areas where other phones on non-Telstra network had no signal.
The only time I’ve had signal issues with Aldi was in an underground lecture theater at Melbourne University where a phone on the Optus (I think from memory) network got good signal. I guess Optus had a cell tower on top of that building or something.