Optus confirms that data rollover will be available across all of its nine ‘microSIM’ prepaid iPad 3G plans, with as much as 15GB able to be carried over for six months at a time.
The iPad’s 3G carriers are jostling at the starting gate in an effort to position their prepaid plans as best value for the tablet-toting digerati.
And while
Telstra and
Optus are fairly evenly matched in prices and data, Optus offers a wider range of recharge packs and data expiry dates.
Now Optus has also advised that its iPad-friendly ‘MicroSIM’ plans will permit unused data to be carried over, effectively putting as much as 15GB on the slate for up to six months at a time.
Optus’ rollover system is also more straight-forward than
Telstra's carry-forward arrangement. The only requirement is that customers “recharge within the same ‘recharge family’ prior to their recharge expiry date”, an Optus spokesperson confirmed with APC.
Those three ‘families’ are
- the $15 and $20 ‘top up’ vouchers, which give you 500MB and 1GB respectively for use within 15 days;
- the 30 day and 60 day recharge plans, which stretch from $30/3GB through to $130/14GB;
- and the 186 day recharge voucher, which is good for 8GB over a six month period.
(Note that each of these plans is also eligible for an additional 1GB of bonus data if activated by September 30th.)
So if you bought a $100/12GB pack with 60 days expiry at the beginning of June, but come the end of July you still had slabs of data remaining, you could hang onto the unused data by rolling it into the next month on a low-cost 30 day recharge such as the $30/3GB voucher – as long as you buy the recharge voucher before your inital 60 day period is up.
However, if you move from one ‘recharge family’ to another – following up a 60 day voucher with a 15 day recharge pack, for example – all unused data vanishes into the ether.