Mobile broadband in Australia - an overview

I was checking out The Australian IT this morning and came across this review of the country’s mobile broadband services. I was quite surprised to see Virgin Mobile mentioned. For me, Virgin Mobile is unequivocally voice and text. Data rates here in the UK on Virgin Mobile are nothing short of atrocious. You must always beware of greeks bearing gifts, so goes the saying; or mobile operators displaying their data rates charges by the kilobyte. (Virgin UK: 0.5p per Kb — STUPID).

So it’s with some surprise that I discover that Virgin Mobile Broadband in Australia are knocking out an AUS$80/month unlimited deal (which includes $520 worth of mobile calls and 1gb data). Nice.

Here are the key points from the article:

Virgin Mobile Australia

For $80 a month, users get a mobile phone, $520 worth of calls, a mobile broadband unit and 1GB of broadband usage. This makes it attractive to people looking for a new mobile phone plan and ready to take the plunge into mobile broadband.

Everybody’s favourite innovating mobile operator, 3, make an appearance too:

3 Mobile:

Last week, 3 Mobile halved the price of its mobile broadband plans, which means its 1GB plan is probably the cheapest offering on the market, at $14.50 per month. To qualify for this, however, you need to also sign up for a mobile service with 3, or be an existing 3 post-paid customer.

Big Red aren’t far behind:

Vodafone Mobile Broadband: Vodafone has by far the best value plan on the market, offering 5GB of download for $39.95, and is the only other provider to offer the same-size plan, but this usually costs almost double.

And finally Optus Mobile:

Optus has also looked to get in the game recently by quietly launching a 400MB and 2GB plan, which are cheaper if bundled with a mobile phone plan for the 24-month contract. Yes Starter, the 400MB option, costs $34.99 a month on its own, and yes Classic, which includes 2GB of downloads, costs $49.99. It is $10 less per month on each plan when bundled with a mobile plan.

We’ve got quite a few Aussie readers — so for them, I pose this question: Are you using any of the above services and are they any good in practice?