New Telstra Mobile Plans

Telstra has revamped its mobile phone plan offerings, replacing the old Freedom Connect plans with a new range called Every Day Connect plans. We've pushed through the plan updates and full details can be found in our comparison table.

Telstra has retained its position of charging customers "premium" rates for the ability to take advantage of superior Telstra network coverage.

At first glance it's hard to see too much difference between old and new plans, other than the $1 price rise. But let's look a little closer...

Call Rates

The call rate across all new plans has increased to 99c per minute, whilst the flagfall has risen by 5c to 40c per call. We used our Visualiser tool to analyse the average number of call minutes included in each plan. The minutes figure assumes an average call duration of 3 minutes per call.

The real pain point for Telstra customers is the $100 plan:

• On the old plan, you used to get $1200 of included value at call rates of 90c per 60 seconds which represents 1180 minutes (assuming 3 minutes per call). The flagfall for each call used to be only 35c.
• Now you get only $900 of value, however this is at 99c per minute which means only 801 minutes (assuming 3 minutes per call). However there is a higher flagfall for each call, meaning you’ll burn through the included value faster.

Of course, it's possible to argue that some of the Telstra bonuses, such as free night time or weekend calls, would make the $100 plan compare more favourably. However, for the purpose of our analysis we have focused purely on the included value and treated the extras as pure bonuses.

Data Allowance

Then we come to the included data allowance, which will be a major annoyance for some customers. Telstra has effectively reduced the data allowance of each plan by 500MB, bar the Every Day Connect $130 plan.

Recent reports suggest the cost of data on the Telstra network is now around 34 per cent higher than competitors such as Vodafone and Optus. Indeed spending $99 with Vodafone will get you a 4GB monthly data allowance - double the Telstra offering.

The $130 Every Day Connect plan has retained both unlimited voice calls and 3GB of data, making it the only plan to retain the same included value.

Phone Pricing

It's better news in terms of handset pricing, with nearly all handsets remaining on the same pricing structure as the previous Freedom Connect plans. Apple iPhone enthusiasts will be pleased to see the prices for iPhone 4S models have come down on most plans by around $2 - $5 per month. However, the iPhone 4S 64GB still costs an additional $7 per month on top of a $130 monthly plan, which seems a little steep!

If you were to purchase the iPhone 4S 32GB on the old $79 Freedom Connect plan you'd pay $10 per month for the handset, for a total of $89 per month. On the new $80 Every Day Connect Plan, the handset payment is down to $6, meaning your total is $86 per month. Over the course of a 24 month contract that is a saving of $72.

Telstra Inclusions

There are some good inclusions on the new plans, such as unlimited SMS, free voice calls between 7pm - 7am, unlimited weekend calls, and unlimited voicemail retrieval. Note that these features are only available on selected plans.

Compare Telstra's new Every Day Connect Plans

Michael Ralph

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