Vodafone trims mobile broadband prices

Vodafone has cut the price of its mobile broadband plans and opened them up to customers who aren’t already signed up for the carrier’s 3G phone service.

The revised plans now start at $25 per month for 1GB, although the carrier is slyly promoting this a $20 per month plan and ignoring that you have to pay an additional $5 per month for the ‘Internet stick’ USB modem. On that basis however 3 still has the edge, with $20 for 1GB including the $5 for a USB ‘Internet key’ or ExpressCard modem. Both require a 24 month contract and charge 10c/MB for excess data.

Vodafone’s premium $40/5GB plan has made a welcome comeback, and includes the USB ‘stick’ modem. 3 also stacks up well here, with 6GB (and a free USB key or ExpressCard modem) for the same monthly fee.

And while Vodafone offers only those two $25 and $40 plans, aimed respectively at ‘light users’ and ‘heavy users’, 3 fills in the gaps with extra plans at $20 for 2GB, $35 for 3GB and $50 for 7GB (modems included in all prices) and also offers a no-contract option where you buy the modem up-front (ranging from $129 to $199) and then pay on a month-by-month basis for 1GB ($15), 3GB ($29) or 6GB ($49).

Where Vodafone really wins out is its vastly cheaper global data roaming rates – if you’re a geek on the go, you’ll find Vodafone has several packages which are far cheaper than any other network and come in well ahead of its own pay-by-the-kb rate.

The ‘Light’ plan provides 25MB for $49 per month, while the ‘Heavy’ plan allows for 120MB at $199. Sounds expensive? Not nearly as much as standard roaming data rates, which typically stretching from $10 to $20 per megabyte, depending on your home carrier and the country you’re visiting. (The sole exception is a handful of 3 networks where local mobile subscribers can enjoy rates of 50c/MB).

3, on the other hand, remains stymied by the limited coverage of its 3G-only network in the greater metro areas. Step out from under 3’s wing and you’re not only forced onto Telstra’s GSM network and its dial-up speeds, you’re slugged with a $1.65/MB tariff for the privilege.

But as the exhaustive annual mobile broadband test in the October 2008 issue of APC magazine reveals, Vodafone’s network suffers from lacklustre performance. We recorded an average 317Kbit/s download speed and 111Kbit/s uplink, with a 289ms ping time – results which are barely better than plain vanilla 3G. On the other hand 3 clocked a far more usable 1.6Mbit/s download and 350Kbit/s upload, with a slightly snappier latency of 235ms.

You can watch video clips of the tests here and observe for yourself the effects of each network's speed and latency using several real-world sites. The speed of each carrier will of course vary depending on your location and even the time of day when you use the network (due to the amount of users on the local cell).