I’d switch to felix mobile, if it upped its speeds

As far as I'm concerned, felix mobile is the most interesting telco around, but I won’t switch until its speed cap hits 50Mbps.

The Australian telco landscape is confusing, slow moving, and stuck in its ways, but felix mobile is the antithesis of the market at large. Where few providers are making real sustainability promises, felix has made it its whole brand. Where eSIM is an afterthought for most, felix has an eSIM purchase journey to encourage uptake. Where complex plan tiers and inclusions are the norm, felix has but one offering. Unlimited data, at 20Mbps, for $35 per month. 

felix is undeniably the most progressive provider in the country, but 20Mbps still feels like I'm being cheated. Maybe Australia’s 4G speeds ruined me, and maybe our NBN speed tiers set a strange precedent, but looking at the current state of the market I simply can’t justify $35 for speeds slower than a slow NBN plan.

While capped speed mobile plans are becoming more prevalent, the 20Mbps limit still feels - well limited. Telstra, its MVNOs, and Optus prepaid and MVNOs have or will adopt speed caps of 100Mbps-250Mbps in the new financial year, and while these caps (coupled with price rises) are the telco equivalent of shrinkflation, they’re unlikely to affect how we can use our phones. I can’t say the same about felix’s caps however.

On site, felix claims that 20Mbps is “fast enough for every day mobile use”, and that in itself is true. You’re unlikely to do anything on your phone that needs the entire 20Mbps capacity, but you’re also unlikely to be achieving the max speed at all times. Mobile speeds vary due to congestion, coverage, location, and even which device you use. “Up to” 20Mbps leaves very little room for error before using your device becomes frustrating.

In the current market, I think 50Mbps is a juicy sweet spot. Qualitatively it doesn’t feel like as big of a trade-off from the bigger providers, and quantitatively it allows users to complete big ticket items without impacting the broader mobile spectrum.

Capping speeds doesn’t magically create more mobile spectrum, but it does mean that devices need to stay connected to it for longer periods of time to complete the same tasks. Let's say you want to download the TikTok app on the go; the 320MB iOS app would take over 2 minutes to download on 20Mbps, or 51 seconds on 50Mbps. Within that extra minute, there is less mobile spectrum available for other users which will affect the network experience as a whole. Now think about that impact at scale with tens of thousands of users.

Of course, that logic could be applied to raise speed caps even higher again, but I'm not here to make that suggestion. felix has done the groundwork to bring capped speed, unlimited data plans to Australia and in doing so caused a shift in SIM plans we’ll be seeing the effects of for years. 

I’m impressed, and I’m not trying to stand in the way of progress. But finding the right speed cap that benefits users and providers equally needs some trial and error. And felix knows this too - the telco has already increased that speed cap from the initial 5Mbps to its current 20Mbps. I’m simply suggesting that we push that little bit further. What's 30 more Mbps between friends?

Anula Wiwatowska

Offsite Editorial Lead | Instagram

Anula is the Off-Site Editorial Lead for WhistleOut Australia, and an award winning tech journalist. She has been writing about the Australian telco industry, and consumer technology for over five years, and has been known to tell her Uber driver which phone they should upgrade to next.

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