Optus announces Christmas surprise for broadband users

There's no doubt there will be some Optus users gleaming at today's official announcement of gigantic data increases for Optus broadband users, including a new 1 Terabyte plan.

Coming some months after other ISPs entered Terabyte territory, including TPG, iiNet and Internode, the update to the Optus plans is a step in the right direction, and not just because of the data increases (though the increase from 15GB to 500GB in the case of the "Fusion 99" plan is nothing to sniff at).

Optus has also removed excess fee on the updated Fusion plans, as well as addressed the peak/off peak issue - removing the limitation for  Fusion customers.

All good news, though the fine print on the Fusion and standalone plans makes for an interesting comparison.

In the past, bundling hasn't always stacked up financially. With the Optus Fusion plans you need to see whether you'll benefit from the call savings included as part of the package (for example Fusion 99 includes unlimited standard local, national calls to fixed lines and Optus GSM mobiles).

With the new Optus plans it appears there are some other advantages to choosing Fusion over standalone/Naked plans. For example, the 500GB Naked plan announced today is split between peak and off-peak periods, and speeds are limited to 64Kbps rather than 256Kbps for Fusion customers.