Optus provides a wide variety of mobile telecommunications services on its own Optus 4G Plus network across Australia.
What services does Optus Mobile offer?
Optus runs its own 4G network, the Optus 4G Plus network, which it uses to provide consumer services on both contract and prepaid models. This includes options for Optus contract SIM-only services on a month by month or annual basis, or contracts with bundled phones over a 24 month period.
In the prepaid space, Optus offers a variety of prepaid SIM-only plans, as well as a number of budget handsets sold at outright prices. SIM variants include Long Expiry options, simple daily options and Optus’ My Prepaid Ultimate plans, which give you 28 day expiry with a variety of bundled extras.
How much does Optus Mobile cost?
In the contract space, Optus’ month by month plans range from $35 to $60 per month with unlimited standard national talk and text inclusions; higher rate level plans also include additional data inclusions and a quantity of international calling minutes to a selection of popular locations. Its 12 month SIM only plans offer the same unlimited standard national talk and text inclusions. They are slightly cheaper on a per-month basis ranging from $30 to $50 per month. The 12 month plans also reward you for annual loyalty with higher data inclusions.
If you opt for a handset on contract, Optus 24-month plans range from $40 to $160. That’s not including the handset repayment which will vary depending on your choice of smartphone. All contract tiers include unlimited standard national calls and texts within Australia, and all but the lowest tier include international call inclusions as well. The very top tier also includes up to 10 days of Optus roaming travel packs as well.
On the prepaid side, Optus offers three primary products, each of which has different expiry periods and pricing. Optus’ Long Expiry Plans range from $30 to $60, with 186 day expiry for any recharge except the $60 one, which lasts for 365 days. Standard calls on those plans cost 20c per minute, texts are the same and data is charged at 5c per MB. Optus Daily Plus plan recharges range from $10 to $100. If you recharge at $10 or $20 you get 30 days of expiry, whereas recharges at $30 or above have 186 days expiry. Daily Plus works on a flat basic $2 per day fee, however, with unlimited standard national calls and texts as well as 500MB of data to use. If you go over your data quota, a further $2 charge is applied for an additional 524MB once only.
Optus’ other prepaid plan is called My Prepaid Ultimate. It offers recharges on a 28 day expiry basis with pricing ranging from $10 to $60. At the $10 and $20 recharge tiers the Ultimate plans come with calling minute inclusions, while recharges above that level include unlimited national calls. All plans offer unlimited texts. Recharges above $40 include unlimited standard calls to Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, NZ, Singapore, South Korea, UK and USA as well.
What extras does Optus Mobile offer?
Optus’ big current flagship extra for its contract plans is the inclusion of access to the English Premier League. Optus holds the full broadcast rights for the 2016/2017 EPL season as well as the International Champions Cup. Customers on month to month or 12/24 month contract plans qualify for access to Optus’ EPL coverage via their devices, as well as options for the Fetch TV Mini set top box for TV soccer viewing.
Optus also allows families to form a single data pool from a range of Optus contracts to maximise the use of a combined data quota, which could be beneficial if you have multiple SIMs on Optus contract.
For prepaid plans, the My Ultimate Prepaid plans currently include free data streaming for Google Play Music, Guvera, iHeartRadio, Pandora & Spotify music applications. If you recharge your My Ultimate Plan within expiry you can roll over unused data inclusions up to a maximum of 15GB. In a similar vein, recharging the Long Expiry plans within your expiry period will allow you to roll over unused credit up to a maximum of $500.
