We compare flexible mobile plans designed to scale with businesses of any size.
Pros
- Large range of plans. Businesses of all sizes can find a plan appropriate for their needs.
- Shared data. No need to micro-manage each employee's data requirements.
- Plenty of extras. Business apps, consultation services and a simple management portal make controlling the mobile side of your business even easier.
Cons
- Only 24-month contracts. You have to commit for the long term unless you want to pay an expensive termination fee.
- No unlimited data plans. If your business spends a lot of time online on-the-go, you could end up paying steep excess data charges.
What you need to know about Telstra's business mobile plans
Scaling up, Telstra also provides a wealth of mobile solutions for larger businesses wanting to group multiple plans under a single bill. These plans come with shared data allowances, allowing for employees with heavier data requirements to make use of data other employees don't need. The more services attached to a single Telstra business account, the cheaper the call rates are, too, so the more plans you sign up for, the less you pay per employee.
Telstra's business mobile plans support a range of optional inclusions for managing your company's mobile needs. These include the Telstra Mobile Device Management (T-MDM) portal, which provides a central interface for tracking call and data usage across all your employee's devices, for deploying applications to those devices and for protecting your company's data with a suite of security services.
If you're looking to keep your team up-to-date with the latest in mobile technology, Telstra's business plans are also eligible for the "New Phone/Tablet Feeling" program, which lets you upgrade your employee's devices to the latest model after 12 months on contract. On the other hand, if your employees are taking their devices into treacherous territory, you can sign up for the StayConnected Plus service, which lets you quickly swap or replace a device for a discounted fee if something goes wrong or a particular device proves unsuitable for your business.
What are the different Telstra business mobile plans?
Telstra's basic My Business Mobile plans offer the same inclusions as the telco's standard mobile plans, differing only in the addition of a Microsoft Office 365 subscription on the XL and XXL plans. For SIM-only plans, pricing starts at $39 a month for 2GB of data and $500 worth of talk and goes up to $99 a month for 30GB of data and unlimited national and international calls.
The larger-scale Connected Business Mobile plans, meanwhile, come in five different tiers with a variety of call and data inclusions. At the low end, the $40 Connected Business plan comes with $40 of included calls and 0.5GB a month, while the next step up costs $60 a month and includes $60 of calls and 3GB of data. Beyond that, all Connected Business plans include unlimited calls and clock in at $90 a month for 8GB of data, $130 for 20GB and $190 for 30GB.
As an added bonus, the $90-a-month plan includes unlimited international calls to 10 select countries, while the $130 and $190 plans come with unlimited international calls worldwide. All Telstra's business mobile plans also enjoy free calls and texts to other numbers on the same Telstra business account.
Connected Business mobile plans are only available on 24-month contracts, and are subject to a number of additional fees on top of their monthly cost. Any extra data used beyond your business account's shared monthly limit gets charged at a rate of $0.02 per 1MB. If you want to cancel one of your employees' plans before their 24-month contract is up, you'll need to pay an early termination charge calculated according to the time remaining on the contract. The maximum early termination charge varies from plan to plan, ranging from $480 up to $2,280.
What additional services are offered?
For its Connected Business plans, Telstra provides access to its Mobile Device Management portal for tracking and configuring your employees' phone and tablet usage. On the $40, $60 and $90 plans, this service costs an additional $5 per month. On the $130 and $190 plans, it's bundled in for free.
If you don’t want to manage the mobile side of your business yourself, Telstra also offers a range of managed services to take care of that for you. These include app management for controlling your employees' access to different mobile apps, service delivery management for assessing your company's mobile performance and fleet management for handling the hardware aspects of your company's mobile activities.
Lastly, Telstra offers a catalogue of business mobile apps to complement its mobile plans. Among these are the cloud storage service Box, the expenses-tracking app Squirrel Street and the digital signature software DocuSign. All apps can be distributed to your employees' devices through the Mobile Device Management portal, and Telstra provides consultation on the use of each app and how it can contribute to the growth of your business.
