Going Overseas With an Optus Phone and want to do some data roaming? Then stock up the bank account baby and get ready to pay dearly to surf the information superhighway.
I must admit that when i wrote about Vodafone's data pricing rates for 3G when global roaming, i thought it couldn't get any worse. But i should give Vodafone some credit. Only some, because their $10,000 per gigabyte global roaming charges seem to be the best of a bad bunch.
How much does Optus charge for international data roaming? 2c a kilobyte, $20.48 a megabyte or a very cool $20,480 a gigabyte. No, that's not incorrect. Over $20,000 for every gigabyte.
At least Optus announce their exorbitant charges without the spin, i guess at those highway robbery prices, who needs it?
Browsing, downloading or emailing on your mobile outside Australia will incur data roaming charges. Data roaming charges are $0.02 per KB or $20.48 per MB. Data roaming usage is not included in a Mobile Internet Pack, monthly plan allowance, Blackberry data packs or any other data packs.
And Optus do actually provide some useful advice on their website on how to turn off push notifications on your phone. These push or pull options mean that your phone could be downloading data without you even opening your mailbox or an Internet browser.
But still, over $20,000 for one gigabyte of data? Surely they are kidding us?
This is one of those stories where the ACCC will take an interest if they haven't already. Although its unlikely they can do a whole lot. Price gouging on global roaming by Aussie telcos has been going on for years. We are the most expensive in the world.
I'm sure this issue will get a run quite heavily in the major dailies or evening current affairs shows soon. That's a good thing. People need to be aware of how much they could be up for.
But i do wonder how many people have been caught out by not turning off their data on their iPhone or blackberry. I'm sure some people have been cbeen stung to the tune of hundreds if not thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
$20,000 a gigabyte? Tell em they're dreaming. Next stop, Telstra.
About Just Grumpy
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Telstra is $15k per GB. So Voda really is cheaper. I doubt that Australia is the most expensive for global roaming - situation is very similar in every country.
For calls and postpaid service, try www.vroam.com (disclaimer: I used to work for them)
Telstra now has international roaming plus packs :
$160 for 60MB, that's only $2,730 for 1 GB !!
http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/internat_roaming/internat_prepaid.html
click on the PLUS PACKS
Egad!
i just got a bill for 184 meg of data
of $3768 what a fucking joke!
they dont verbally disclose this amount when you ring to activate, I'm not paying they can get fucked ive contacted the communications ombudsman
let the fight begin
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