Pre-paid wireless will save you from 24 month wireless contracts, but be sure to read the fine print.
Optus and Vodafone both announced new wireless broadband offerings yesterday, focusing on different market areas. Vodafone's offering revolves around a 7.2MBps capable USB stick (with its own MicroSD card slot) with support for dual-band 3G MTS 900/2100 MHz at up to 7.2Mbps if you can get reception. Vodafone claims that over 95% of the Australian population will have coverage by Christmas.
Vodafone's offering is clearly marketed towards the speed junkies, whereas Optus has a new pre-paid wireless broadband offering. You'll have to stump up $199 for the modem upfront, but after that you can spend as little as $30 for a 2GB, 30-day time limited allowance, which is not too bad when you consider similarly priced deals include 24 month contracts.
Optus deal might seem like a winner, but it does feature some odd data charging features. Optus' own FAQ on its pre-paid wireless describes it like so:
"The first 30MB of usage each day will only be charged at 10MB. After this, usage will be charged in 10MB increments or part thereof and will include both uploads and downloads."
So if you log in more than three times a day, will you blow through the 30MB free cap limit right away?
We've asked Optus for clarification on this, and received the following reply from an Optus spokesperson:
"To simplify data usage reporting for our customers, we have used 10MB increments as a measure. When a customer starts using the internet and then closes down, it is only at that point in time when they end their internet session that their usage block is counted.
To ensure that our customers are not disadvantaged by this, and we continue to provide them with great value, we are providing them with a daily data bonus - so, the first 20MB they use that day is actually not counted towards their data allowance. Therefore if your average consumer logs onto the internet once a day, it essentially means we are giving them an extra 20MB that day free of charge."