Dodo Broadband | NBN and ADSL2+ plans

9 July 2018

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Dodo is an Australian broadband provider that offers ADSL2+, NBN and mobile broadband services.

How does Dodo compare?
Dodo NBN plans
Dodo ADSL plans
Dodo mobile broadband plans
Why should you consider Dodo?

Dodo is one of the more established names in the Australian broadband market, having supplied Aussie homes with Internet services since 2001. Unlike its namesake, the Melbourne-based telco is very much alive and kicking, offering NBN, ADSL and mobile broadband plans on month-to-month, 12-month and 24-month contracts.

Alongside its standard Internet plans, Dodo also offers home phone services delivered either through Voice over IP (VoIP) or the traditional landline network. It also caters to entertainment needs with its Fetch TV bundles, which combine the streaming service Fetch with either its unlimited ADSL or unlimited NBN plan.

Dodo NBN plans

Dodo supports all the standard NBN technologies with its NBN plans, providing services over fibre to the premises (FTTP), fibre to the node (FTTN), fibre to the building (FTTB), hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) and fixed wireless connections. However, it does not support all tiers of NBN speeds. It only offers nbn 12, nbn 25 and nbn 50 speeds on its unlimited plan and limits its capped plans to the nbn 12 tier alone.

Regardless of which NBN technology used to deliver the connection, Dodo offers four different NBN plans:

Standard 50GB plan, which includes a 12Mbps connection and 50GB of data for $39.90 a month
Standard Unlimited plan, which includes a 12Mbps connection and unlimited data for $59.90 a month
Turbo Unlimited plan, which includes a 25Mbps connection and unlimited data for $69.90 a month
Supercharged Unlimited plan, which includes a 50Mbps connection and unlimited data for $79.90 a month

These monthly rates remain the same no matter which contract you sign up for, but set-up fees do not. On a month-to-month contract, Dodo charges a once-off $99 connection fee; on a 12-month contract, this drops to $69. The connection fee is waived completely on 24-month contracts.

As always, the caveat with fixed-term contracts is that you'll have to pay an early termination fee if you want to cancel your service before the full term is over. On both 24-month and 12-month contracts, Dodo calculates this fee as $8 multiplied by the number of months remaining in your contract.

Unlike the majority of home broadband providers these days, Dodo charges excess usage fees if you use more than your monthly quota of data. Excess data is counted in 1GB chunks, with each costing you an extra $2. However, once you've used more than 10GB over your monthly limit, Dodo will block your Internet service and redirect you to its online portal where you can choose to buy more data blocks to tide you over for the rest of the month.

For more about the extras Dodo offers with its NBN plans, click here.

Dodo ADSL plans

Dodo offers standalone ADSL plans as well as ADSL and home phone bundles. While the former are significantly cheaper, they require you to already have an active phone line. However, this doesn't need to be provided by Dodo, so if you have a landline phone service with another Internet provider, Dodo's standalone ADSL plans will work just fine.

For both its standalone plans and its ADSL bundles, Dodo offers either a 50GB data cap or an unlimited data cap. Pricing for its standalone ADSL plans is as follows:

50GB Standalone ADSL, which includes 50GB of data for $24.90 a month
Unlimited Standalone ADSL, which includes unlimited data for $29.90 a month

Dodo's ADSL bundles are a little less straightforward. On a 24-month or 12-month contract, home phone line rental costs an extra $30 a month, but on a month-to-month contract, it's an extra $40.

Setup fees differ depending on contract length, too. Month-to-month contracts require an upfront payment of $99, 12-month contracts drop that to $69 and 24-month contracts get rid of the setup fee altogether. Be aware, though, that cancelling a 12-month or 24-month contract before the full term has passed means paying a hefty early termination fee. This works out at $16 for every month left on your contract.

On Dodo's 50GB ADSL plan, excess usage fees apply should you burn through that 50GB before the end of your current billing cycle. Extra data is automatically charged at a rate of $0.002 per 1MB up to a maximum surcharge of $20 beyond your normal monthly bill. At that point, Dodo will suspend your Internet service and give you the option to purchase more data blocks a la carte if you can't wait for your monthly cap to reset.

For more about the extras Dodo offers with its ADSL plans, click here.

Dodo mobile broadband plans

Dodo has an extensive range of mobile broadband plans, offering both post-paid and prepaid plans as well as separate 4G and 3G plans. All services are delivered over Optus's 3G and 4G network and come with free delivery of a Dodo SIM card for accessing the service through a phone, tablet or any other SIM-compatible device.

On its post-paid plans, Dodo supports month-to-month, 12-month and 24-month contracts. Pricing is identical regardless of contract length, so there's little reason to lock yourself in for a fixed term, especially since Dodo charges an early termination fee of $5 per month remaining on 12-month and 24-month contracts.

Here's the pricing breakdown for Dodo's post-paid 4G and 3G plans:

1GB plan: $10 a month
2GB plan: $35 a month
4GB plan: $45 a month
8GB plan: $65 a month
12GB plan: $85 a month

For both its 4G and 3G post-paid plans, Dodo offers a discount to existing customers on any of its post-paid home broadband, mobile, home phone and energy plans. On all but the 1GB plan, this amounts to $15 off the monthly fee for 4G plans and $10 off the monthly fee for 3G plans. On the 1GB plan, the price is the same for both new and existing customers.

Using more than your monthly data cap on Dodo's post-paid plans will incur excess usage charges. For every 1GB over your monthly limit (rounded up to the nearest GB), Dodo will charge you $15. Once you've gone 5GB over your regular monthly cap, Dodo will suspend your service for the rest of your current billing cycle. If you can't wait that long, you'll need to contact Dodo directly to organise a different solution.

On the prepaid front, Dodo offers a 3G-only service with the following recharge options:

300MB recharge, which costs $10 and lasts for 30 days
1GB recharge, which costs $20 and lasts for 30 days
2GB recharge, which costs $30 and lasts for 30 days
3GB recharge, which costs $40 and lasts for 30 days
6GB recharge, which costs $70 and lasts for 60 days
6GB recharge, which costs $99 and lasts for 180 days
10GB recharge, which costs $139 and lasts for 365 days

Delivery of a basic prepaid SIM card is free, but Dodo also offers a 3G USB modem for $40. As a bonus, the modem comes with 3GB of data pre-loaded for free.

Dodo extras

On all Dodo's NBN and ADSL plans, rental of an NBN-ready modem is compulsory. This is bundled in for free on 24-month contracts, but you'll need to pay an upfront fee of $50 on a 12-month contract. On a month-to-month contract, you'll have to pay $109 for the modem, but you'll get to keep it indefinitely instead of simply renting it.

Currently, the modem included with Dodo's plans is a custom model, featuring support for both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless frequencies.

In addition to standalone Internet services, Dodo provides Voice over IP (VoIP) and landline phone services for bundling with its broadband plans. A standard pay-as-you-go VoIP service is included at no extra charge with its NBN plans, whereas a traditional pay-as-you-go landline service will set you back an additional $30 a month on a 24-month contract or $40 on a month-to-month contract.

Dodo also offers call packs with its VoIP and landline services. $10 extra a month will get you unlimited local, national and mobile calls within Australia; $15 extra a month will get you 2000 international minutes to landlines in 25 select countries; and $25 extra a month will get you 2000 international minutes to landlines and mobiles in those same 25 countries.

For entertainment buffs, Dodo has bundle plans that combine the streaming service Fetch with either an unlimited ADSL connection or an unlimited NBN connection. You can add speed boosts and call packs onto the Fetch bundles the same as Dodo's regular broadband plans, but you'll have to sign up for a full 24 months since the Fetch bundle is not available on a 12-month or month-to-month contract.

Here's what you'll pay for Dodo's Fetch TV bundles:

ADSL + Fetch bundle: $44.90 a month
NBN + Fetch bundle with 12Mbps connection: $74.90 a month

As with its standard NBN plans, Dodo gives you the option to upgrade its NBN + Fetch bundle to a faster 25Mbps connection for $10 extra a month or to a 50Mbps connection for $20 extra a month.

By default, both Fetch bundles include the Fetch Mini set-top box and your choice of one of four Fetch channel packs. Upgrading to the Fetch Mighty set-top box costs an extra $5 a month, while each additional channel pack beyond the first adds an extra $6 to your monthly bill.

How does Dodo compare?

Dodo's NBN, ADSL and mobile broadband plans provide plenty of opportunity for comparison, but that doesn't always work in its favour.

How do Dodo's NBN plans compare?
How do Dodo's ADSL plans compare?
How do Dodo's mobile broadband plans compare?

How do Dodo's NBN plans compare?

While most NBN providers roll out ever-larger data caps to satisfy growing Internet appetites, Dodo takes the opposite approach by offering slight 50GB plans alongside its more-common unlimited plan. It's one of only a handful of providers to do so, giving it an advantage simply due to lack of competition.

Nevertheless, Dodo struggles to stand out against providers like Exetel and Activ8me, both of which offer twice the data with their plans for the same monthly price. Activ8me's plan doesn't come with a phone service bundled in like Dodo's plan, which is a point in Dodo's favour for those who like the occasional chin wag.

There's no shortage of competition in the unlimited NBN space, and it's here that Dodo struggles most. Infinity's unlimited plan works out significantly cheaper in the short term thanks to its $0 setup fees, while plans from Flip TV and SpinTel charge less in both upfront and monthly fees, making them more compelling no matter how long you plan on maintaining your Internet service.

Since the comparisons above are based on plans with basic 12Mbps connections, they don't quite tell the whole story. To determine how Dodo's plans stack up across all tiers of NBN speeds, the table below compares the costs of upgrading to faster speeds with relevant telcos:

	Dodo	SpinTel	Teleron	Exetel	Flip TV	Infinity Telco	Buzz Telco
25Mbps	$10 extra	N/A	$10 extra	N/A	$10 extra	$5 extra	$10 extra
50Mbps	$20 extra	$10 extra	$20 extra	$5 extra	$30 extra	$10 extra	$15 extra
100Mbps	N/A	$25 extra	$30 extra	$35 extra	N/A	$20 extra	$20 extra

As you can see, Dodo's upgrade pricing doesn't do much to change its standings against the competition.

How do Dodo's ADSL plans compare?

Dodo's ADSL plans immediately stand out as some of the cheapest on the market. While this is certainly a compelling point in the telco's favour, it's important to put the pricing in context. Dodo's standard ADSL plans don't include line rental, and since line rental is necessary for the provision of ADSL Internet, you'll need to factor its cost in, too.

Line rental typically costs around $30 a month, and you don't have to purchase it from Dodo – any provider will do. That's good, since Dodo charges a steep $40 for line rental on its month-to-month plans compared to the $30 most of its competitors charge.

Considering this, Dodo's 50GB standalone ADSL plan loses some of its lustre. If you're already paying for a landline service and you're only going to be using the Internet for basic browsing, it's still one of the cheapest options around. Should you need line rental too, however, you'd be better off going with Exetel's 100GB ADSL bundle or TPG's ADSL Home bundle, both of which come with a landline phone service and pay-as-you-go calls for less than an equivalent package would cost through Dodo.

It's a similar story with Dodo's Unlimited ADSL plan. For standalone ADSL without line rental, it remains one of the most affordable options around, although AusBBS's standalone plan works out cheaper over periods of less than 18 months thanks to its lower setup costs.

Again, though, if you don't already have an active landline service, Exetel and AusBBS's ADSL and home phone bundles are more attractive options at a lower monthly cost than bundling with Dodo.

How do Dodo's mobile broadband plans compare?

Dodo's mobile broadband plans are a little odd. Despite their slower speeds, the provider's 3G plans are priced the same as its 4G plans, rendering them effectively irrelevant considering 4G plans include 3G coverage as a backup anyway. As such, only its 4G plans warrant comparing.

Unfortunately, they don't stack up particularly well. The basic 1GB plan doesn't fare too poorly, though it still trails behind similarly priced 1.5GB plans from Jeenee Mobile and Exetel.

Dodo's plans become significantly less attractive at higher data caps. Its 4GB plan, for instance, costs three times as much as Jeenee Mobile's larger 5GB plan, and more than twice as much as other leading plans at the 5GB level. Even with the $15/month discount for existing Dodo post-paid customers, the price remains too steep to compete with providers like Vaya, OVO and SpinTel.

The negative trend continues with Dodo's top-tier 12GB plan. Vaya and OVO charge less than half the standard price for their plans, plus they offer a more-generous 15GB instead of Dodo's 12GB. Meanwhile, you could spring for amaysim's 20GB plan or Kogan Mobile's 30GB plan and still spend significantly less per month than you would with Dodo – and that's even after factoring in the $15/month discount for existing Dodo post-paid customers.

Why should you consider Dodo?

Dodo's appeal lies in its cornering of the low-cost, low-usage broadband market. Few Internet providers offer plans with data caps of 50GB or less these days, making Dodo one of your only options if you're looking for a barebones service at an equivalently pared-back price.

Standalone ADSL is another of Dodo's specialties. Provided you already have an active landline phone service, Dodo's 50GB and unlimited ADSL plans are among the cheapest currently available.

Dodo is also one of the only providers to offer broadband and entertainment bundles with the streaming service Fetch. These bundles provide a means of consolidating your Internet, pay TV and even phone costs into a single bill, simplifying the payment process and potentially saving you money over juggling separate services.