Angus Kidman15 January 2008, 3:00 AM
3 has doubled the capacity on its mobile broadband plans, meaning that $29.95 a month now buys you more Internet access than most entry-level ADSL offerings. Is the end now nigh for fixed broadband plans? Sadly, not quite.
3 has doubled the capacity on its mobile broadband plans, meaning that $29.95 a month now buys you more Internet access than most entry-level ADSL offerings. Is the end now nigh for fixed broadband plans? Sadly, not quite.
3 announced today that it was doubling download limits on all its mobile broadband plans. Its cheapest plan, at $29 a month, now offer 2GB of data; its $49 plan offers 4GB; and the topline $69 plan sports 6GB. The plans go on sale from Wednesday; existing customers will be given the new download limits from next month. Excess use is charged at 10 cents a megabyte.
As well, 3 is allowing existing customers who aren't quite so hungry for downloads to sign up to a $15 a month plan with 500MB of downloads. (The company had previously been criticised for not allowing existing users to take advantage of its Christmas half-price promotion, which offered a one gigabyte monthly plan for $14.95 if you signed up for 24 months.)
3's New Year pricing drop follows a series of price drops and special offers from 3, Vodafone and Optus in the run-up to Christmas. The end result is that mobile broadband is now significantly cheaper than many entry-level ADSL plans, which typically cost $25 or so month for a measly 200MB download limit.
Of course, there's some fine print to be worked through. While 3 is throwing in a USB modem for free, you have to sign up to a 24 month contract -- during which time the general price for broadband is inevitably going to drop.
More significantly, 3 is still handicapped by the fact that its 3G network only covers capital cities and the Gold Coast -- a hefty slice of the population, but one which almost entirely ignores regional areas. If you end up being forced to roam onto Telstra's GPRS network outside those areas (or in a capital city dead spot for 3), you'll pay a hefty $1.95 per megabyte for the privilege. There's an emergency roaming allowance of between 2MB and 10MB, but let's face it, you could exhaust that in a single email update.
Of course, if you know there's a decent Three signal in your house and you only travel occasionally, that might not be such a problem. But if you want your mobile broadband to be usable anywhere in Australia and reasonably fast, Telstra's impressive but uber-pricey Next G remains the best bet.