Telstra partially reverses international roaming price hikes
Telstra has slightly backed down from plans to radically increase the cost of international travel passes for global roaming, with excess data prices to remain fixed as they previously were.
The original plan would have seen a large quantity of countries added to a new Zone 3 categorisation with significant price rises for a large quantity of global travellers wishing to use their Telstra SIMs while overseas.
The changes covered the introduction of a new Zone 3 tier with much higher per-pass costs, as well as an increase in extra data charges from 3c/MB to 10c/MB.
In an announcement on Telstra's Exchange blog, Telstra's Andrew Penn has announced that the company will slightly retreat from the plan, with the 10c/MB pricing scrapped in favour of the older 3c/MB pricing.
It's not a complete reversal of plans, however, with the new 3 tier system still set to be in effect.
I'm about to travel. What does this mean for me?
Here's how Telstra's new pricing schemes work out for each of its International Travel Passes:
| Telstra International Travel Passes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | 3 | 7 | 14 | 30 |
| Zone 1 Cost | $15 | $35 | $70 | $150 |
| Zone 2 Cost | $30 | $70 | $140 | $300 |
| Zone 3 Cost | $45 | $105 | $210 | $450 |
| Included Data | 225MB | 525MB | 1.03GB | 2.20GB |
Which countries are in which zones?
Zone 1 is very easy to understand, because there's only one country in Zone 1: New Zealand.
Zone 2 covers Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
Zone 3 countries include Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Mexico, Nauru, Netherlands, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovak Rep., Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, UK, USA and Vanuatu.
There are a number of popular destinations for Australian travellers which were previously in Zone 2 that are now Zone 3 destinations, including most of Western Europe and the USA, which means in real terms if you're travelling, your access costs are still set to rise if you use Telstra's International Travel passes.
