3 offering competitive deal; Virgin shrinking back to its own stores.
After reading our review of 3 mobile's inexpensive mobile broadband service , you may have been keen on the product.. but put off by the fact that getting 3's service involved lengthy contract terms.
It seems that 3's keen to pick up customers who don't like contracts, today launching a pre-paid service for its mobile broadband. This brings it into line with Optus and Telstra, both of whom launched Prepaid broadband recently.
Unlike Telstra (who charge the earth for what is admittedly a very fast service) and Optus (who have recently been hit with tons of network outage woes and charge in 10MB blocks, 3's pre-paid offering seems good on the surface.
You'll get stung $129 for the modem, and then $15 for 500MB, $29 for 2GB and $49 for 4GB of data, all with a 30-day expiration period. Those who want more (but for some reason, not a contract) can pay $149 upfront for 12GB of data usage with a 12-month expiry.
3's prepaid packs will be available from tomorrow across a variety of outlets, right about the time you should also see Virgin Mobile's pre-paid packs vanish from online retailers, with the Optus subsidiary instead deciding to only offer pre-paid wireless from its own retail outlets.