Telcos go to war with competitive iPhone 6 pricing

Aussie carriers are pulling out the big guns in the lead-up to the Australian iPhone 6 release, offering to pay out your old contracts and waving big bonus data to lure you to their networks.

If you're planning on a new iPhone purchase, you need to know who is offering what before joining the queue outside the Apple store.

Telstra

Telstra plans have a few things going for them, starting with a tantalising $200 credit if you switch from another carrier and sign up to a 24 month contract. You can also trade-in your current phone and receive up to $250 cash, depending on the model and its condition.

Existing customers aren't being left out in the cold. Telstra is offering to waive the balance of your existing contract and sign you up to a new one straight away -- so long as you’re in the final 90 days of your current commitment.

Each plan has a Bonus Upgrade Option, which is more of a plan-customisation feature than anything else. On the $70 plan and up, you can select to either add 1GB of data or $1000 credit for calls and MMS. This doesn’t cost any extra, it’s just a way of letting your tailor your plan to your needs.

There’s also the New Phone Feeling (NPF) scheme, which allows Telstra customers to upgrade to a new phone after only 12-months. Telstra has dropped the $10 per month fee for customers signing up to a $70 plan and up. This is especially attractive to iPhone customers who love getting their hands on the latest model.

Finally, Telstra has the Peace of Mind Commitment. All new subscribers get a huge first month of 25GB data, unlimited calls and unlimited MMS. The first month tends to be the biggest for most users. There’s a lot of app downloading, upgrade installing, music acquisition that goes on. This way you don’t have to worry about overage fees during that initial settling-in period.

Optus

Like Telstra, Optus is offering to pay up to $200 towards early exit fees if you switch from another carrier but are still locked into a contract. You can also trade in your current device and receive up to $250 credit towards your monthly bill.

As an added incentive, the three highest-tier plans on Optus currently have bonus data added on top. The higher you go the bigger the bonus.

Finally, there’s the My Plan Plus system. Optus has done away with bill shock entirely. Now, if you go over your data allowance, you’re simply charged $10 and 1GB of extra data is added to your account until the end of the month. After that everything reverts back and you’re free to do it all over again. There’s no limit to how many times you can go over, it’s just $10 more every time you do. The same is true if you go over your talk minutes, except this time 200 minutes are added instead of data.

As part of My Plan Plus, you can even share your plan’s data with up to five devices. This does not incur any added monthly fees. There is a one-off charge of $5, after which Optus will send you a new data SIM to put in your tablet or other gadget. It’s a nice and easy way to have mobile data on all of your devices.

Bonus data offer ends November 2.

*Includes bonus data.

Going big? Click here for iPhone 6 Plus 128GB plans

Vodafone

Vodafone’s Red Plans are very attractive these days. All three offer unlimited standard national calls, unlimited SMS/MMS both within Australia and to overseas numbers and 300 minutes of calls to international numbers.

Customers are also automatically upgraded whenever they reach their data limit. When you hit your data cap you're automatically charged $10 and given another 1GB until the end of the month, after which everything reverts back. This is a far better system than charging customers a per-Megabyte rate for excess data use.

Speaking of data, right now there’s also bonus data to be had on the two higher cost Red Plans.

For the traveller, there’s $5 a day roaming. For $5 a day you can use your Vodafone allowance when overseas. If that still sounds like it will rack up over a long holiday don’t worry – you only pay for the days when you actually use your phone. Throwing it on to flight mode and enabling WiFi, or turning it off all together means you won’t incur the fee.

Finally, you won’t even need to worry about data in the first two months. Vodafone’s Data Workout offer gives you unlimited data during that period. At this point you don’t have to have settled on a specific plan. The idea is for you to use your phone as much as you like so that afterwards Vodafone can contact you and suggest a plan based on your optimum usage pattern.

Bonus data offer ends November 4.

*Includes bonus data.

Virgin Mobile

Virgin’s current offering is elegant in its simplicity: 2GB of bonus data on all of its plans. Users are eligible for this if they are switching from another provider (unless it’s Optus), or if they are re-contracting with Virgin.

2GB of bonus data is huge when you’re adding it to the lowest-tier plans. The $30 Plan usually only offers 300MB of data, but now it’s a full 2.3GB. That’s more than enough for the average user on the cheapest post-paid plan Virgin has.

If you have overseas commitments, then the top two tiers of plan have included credit just for overseas calls and texts

*Includes bonus data. Offer ends October 19.

Alex Angove-Plumb

Digital Content Editor

Alex Angove-Plumb is a Digital Content Editor at WhistleOut and an award-winning journalist. He's been in the tech publishing industry since 2010, putting him a few short years away from the title of Grizzled Ancient in his chosen profession. He was an original WhistleOut-er before running NBN Co's corporate blog for two years, then moving on to a lengthy stint at CHOICE. Now he's come home.

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