Woolworths Mobile offers a range of handsets on 24 or 36-month contract terms with bonus rewards.
What services does Woolworths Mobile offer?
Woolworths Mobile provides its telecommunications services on parts of Telstra’s 4G networks. What this means in practical terms is that it’s speed limited compared to the "full" Telstra network, as well as having a marginally smaller national footprint, although you do have to get relatively remote to fall outside the nexus of population areas and coverage.
In contract terms, all of Woolworths Mobile’s offerings include a bundled Android smartphone over 24 or 36 months; its SIM-only offerings are only provided on a prepaid basis.
How much do Woolworths Mobile plans cost?
Woolworths Mobile prices its plans at different tiers depending on the quantity of data and calls required. At the lowest plan tier, $20 gets you unlimited calls and texts along with 2.5GB of data. At the top plan tier, you'll get unlimited calls and texts plus 24GB of data for $50 a month. These prices do not include additional handset repayments, which may increase your total monthly bill.
What extras do Woolworths Mobile plans offer?
On contract terms, the big additional hook for Woolworths Mobile customers is the inclusion of Woolworths gift cards with each phone contract. The precise value of card you’ll get can vary depending on seasonal promotional specials, but usually follows the pattern that the higher-tier plans get cards with more value than the lower tier ones, as you might expect.
What excess charges could I face on these plans?
All of Woolworths Mobile's plans included unlimited standard national calls and texts, but there are specific call and text types that fall outside that "standard" designation.
However, the way that Woolworths Mobile handles services that other telcos charges for is a little different to most. Services such as International roaming or any and all premium services (such as Premium SMS or call lines) are explicitly blocked on Woolworths Mobile.
You can however opt to purchase the Optional International and Extras Extension, which allows for call access to international numbers over and above your included call quota, as well as access to satellite numbers as well as video calls and MMS to Australian numbers. These are sold in multiples of $10, up to a maximum of $100, but it must be activated upfront. You won't be hit with it if you try to make a satellite call without activation, because it simply won't work.
The same controlled approach to additional spend on Woolworths Mobile plans includes any additional data usage over your quota. If you exceed your data quota in a given month and do nothing, your data services simply won't work until your next contract month rolls over. You can however opt for a data add-on pack, sold in $10/1GB, $25/3GB or $35/5GB sizes. You can purchase these as a one-off option, or add them as a rolling monthly addition to your plan.
The higher tiers of Woolworths Mobile's plans include an allotment of international calling minutes, and like the data extension, if you want more or opt for a plan that doesn't include them, you'll have to manually activate international calling. At that point, Woolworths Mobile's international calling rates apply.
If you decide to cancel your Woolworths Mobile plan early, you'll have to pay any outstanding charges plus an early termination fee, calculated as 50% of your Minimum Monthly Charge x number of unpaid months remaining in the Minimum Term.
Pros
- Range of phones at all price points Don’t want handset repayments? The lower-end Samsung phones and most of the Oppo range that Samsung offers only want the base level contract payment, which means you’re paying no more for the phone.
- 4G connectivity One of the biggest drawbacks with Telstra-based MVNOs used to be the slow and limited 3G-only coverage. That’s no longer an issue for Woolworths Mobile customers, because while you don’t get the whole Telstra 4G network, you get enough of it for most purposes.
Cons
- Not a good fit for really remote users The "parts" of Telstra’s 3G/4G network that Woolworths Mobile has access to might not suit if you’re notably remote.
