The game of offering then removing their sim only month to month plans is something that Optus knows all too well. They have had monthly mobile plans for years its just that they seem to turn them on and off rather regularly.
In late 2012 following the launch of the Apple iPhone 5, Optus decided that they would launch their Nano sim plans make them available to anyone who wanted access to the Optus 4G network and had purchased an iPhone 5 outright.
For $30, the plans offered $200 in credit ($2.15, 2 min call) and 200MB of data. For $50, they offered $500 in call credit and 1GB of data. The rest of the range was just as uncompetitive. The only real benefit was access to 4G speeds.
What changed this week is that Optus have renamed this range to Sim Only plans and cut the range down to 3 plans, one of which is actually a 12 month contract plan, not month to month at all.
Now for $20 you get $200 in calls and 200MB and for $40 you receive $500 in calls and 1GB data. The range ends there. So how well does it compete?
- Exetel offers $650 in calls, 1,5GB data (4G) and unlimited calls to Exetel for $39.95/mth
- Vaya Mobile offers Unlimited calls, 3GB data (4G) for $45/mth
- Live Connected offers $900 in calls, unlimited TXT, unlimited calls to Live Connected members and 2GB for $41/mth
So at the $40 level at worst the value is half of what you can buy elsewhere, which only means that the pricing is really a rip-off and rather disappointing given what the range of MVNOs is offering.
