Optus today unveils updated My Plan Plus postpaid mobile plans, adding unlimited calling to all postpaid options and the ability to build a Family Sharing plan.
The New My Plan Plus plans are a generous reworking of the Optus plan range, with more calls and data across the board. Importantly, $30 and $35 plans now include unlimited calls (up from 300 minutes) and the doubling of data on the $80 plan — now up to 6GB per month.
Below you can see the improvements made, with old plans and new plans side-by-side. Keep in mind, all plans included unlimited SMS/MMS to Australian mobiles.
| Old My Plan Plus | New My Plan Plus | |
| $30 SIM Only |
Up to 300mins
300MB data |
Unlimited calls
500MB |
| $45 SIM Only | 2GB data | 3GB data |
| $60 SIM Only | 5GB data | 6GB data |
|
|
Up to 300 mins
300MB data |
No longer available |
| $40 Phone Plan | N/A |
Unlimited calls
500MB data |
|
|
Up to 600mins calls
1GB data |
No longer available |
| $60 Phone Plan | 2GB data | 3GB data |
| $80 Phone Plan | 3GB data | 6GB data |
| $100 Phone Plan | 5GB data | 10GB data |
The only price increase in the range is a $5 monthly increase on the $35 plan with a phone (now $40 per month). Optus has also ditched its $50 plan with a phone; customers can now choose either the new $40 plan or a $60 option.
The $80 New My Plan Plus selection is the undoubtedly the hero of the range, with unlimited calls and SMS in Australia, plus unlimited messages and 300 calling minutes to 32 international countries.
Sole traders and some small business owners will see value in the $100 per month plan, which now comes with 10GB per month. With this much data you can safely tether your data to a laptop or tablet and not worry too much about going over your limit.
Share and share alike
Like Vodafone did a month ago, Optus also unveils an option for families to pool their data inclusions and share them with a new Family Sharing option. Families can now choose to combine any number of New My Plan Plus options into a single bill. All family members get unlimited calls and messages (as they would anyway with a New My Plan Plus plan) and all the included data is combined into a single data allocation which they all make use of.
As you can see in the image at the top of the page, you can mix and match phone plans with SIM only plans, the only caveat is that all the plans have to be New My Plan Plus plans — existing customers will need to move onto the new plans to be eligible.
Curiously, Optus will continue to offer Data SIM sharing, so each family member in the pool can add internet-only devices, like tablets and modems, to the Family Share plan for a once-off $5 fee.
There is no cost benefit to combining plans right now — you will pay the same amount for the plans you choose whether they are sharing or not, but we do expect this to change in the future. Especially considering that we now have two major telcos competing with the same new plan feature. It is hard to imagine Optus and Vodafone not creating 'special', 'exciting' or even 'outrageous' prices sometime soon for customers who move their whole family to a new share plan.
Joseph Hanlon
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