debs1966

Hi Guys

I am looking to locate to Perth and wondered what is the best mobile phone supplier with the cheapest rates for calls and SMSs both in Oz and back to the UK please?

Many thanks

Debbie

KJCherokee

A word on mobile phones in Australia - if you stay in the major cities then just about any provider will do, but as soon as you start moving out into the country regions you find that only Telstra offers any coverage. So if you want to do any serious travelling you are stuck with Telstra.

bcworld

Telstra is, I think, the only operator who still doesn't include international SMS in their cap plans.

Three, Vodafone & Virgin include international calls in their cap plans...with 3 I can make $100 of calls to the UK a month ( about 2 hours ).

I know people who are with 3 who live absolutely nowhere near a 3 coverage zone...if there is no 3 coverage you roam & all calls / SMS are still included in the cap. The only issue when roaming is data.

Having said that, I've had a lot of problems with 3 data coverage of late & will be shopping around.

MarkMC

we've tried Vodafone and Optus, but coverage is crap (granted we are gold coast not Perth) Recently got a Telstra phone from work, coverage is excellent. Telstra was more expensive when we got the voda deal but it seems you get what you pay for.

PaulandNic

Yeah Telstra every time. Between the family we've tried all others and are all on Helstra now. Pay for international SMS's yup, but can send/receive them from tim-buck-too as well ...

I know who's not with Telstra in my street as they make their mobile calls from OUTSIDE the house! See it all the time people (like we used to with Vodamoan) standing on their drive with mobile phone in hand chattin.

Oh and the Telstra signal pisses all over Voda / optus / etc with data downloads! (tested) ...

Jen28

can anyone give a very basic overview of what the whole cap plan thing is? i'm used to the simple pay £30 a month and get 500 minutes plus 500 texts then you pay for anything over and above this...

it seems that in Oz there is a price quoted for phones and for plans and then caps and included values etc.

help please?!

bcworld

You pay $xx per month, you get $yyy of 'value'.

The value yyy is basically meaningless unless you look at the actual call, SMS, etc. charges - this makes it quite difficult to compare plans.

Some plans might be charging $1/min + $0.50/SMS.

Once you've used all your included value you have to start paying these rates.

Typically you'll also get a separate allowance (included in the overall cap value number sometimes) for calls to people on the same network.