Telstra will implement sweeping changes to the way it bills customers for making and receiving calls outside of Australia, but the changes don’t necessarily mean cheaper calls.
Telstra boast they will cut down 800 different regional charges to a much more manageable 8, with the new charges ranging between $1.50 per-minute up to $5.00 per-minute for both making and receiving calls. This includes all calls back to Australia, all calls within the destination country and any calls made to any other countries whilst overseas.
Calls under the new rates have no connection fees and are billed in 60-second blocks.
Win some, lose some
Comparing the new, simpler rates with the previous costs country-by-country, it is obvious that there are some savings to be enjoyed. Calls from the UK back to Australia were $2.95 and will now be $2.00, for example. But UK travellers will also be charged a higher rate for calls to other UK numbers, and slugged for receiving calls on their Telstra SIM.
Likewise, calls made from China back to Australia will be cheaper, but calls within China — made and received — will be more expensive.
A full list of the new rates can be found on Telstra's International Roaming page.
In a blog post, Teltra’s Tim Webber explains that this balancing of incoming and outgoing calls is responsive to the way that most travellers use their phone abroad.
“To create simple pricing in each country, we are generally decreasing the outgoing calls rates and increasing the calls received rates. The majority of roaming calls made by our customers when overseas (around 70 per cent) are outgoing — or back to Australia,” writes Webber.
All in all, it will still cost Telstra customers a packet to use their phones overseas, but at least it should be far easier to calculate the damage.
Joseph Hanlon
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