Is there anything like this? Or at least have some reasonable time like greater than 6 months? Currently everything seems to be 1 month and then you lose it.
What I can't understand is why everyone is quite happy to bend over and get reamed by the telcos.
Posted Jul 7, 2010, 9:36 AM UTC
Vodafone have 365 days plan and their lowest voucher is $20 ($18 if you buy them in Wollworth/Safeway). I have been on that plan for years.
I'm planning to move to TPG's $1 a month pay as you go plan because the call and data rates are very cheap (Not to mention free 150Mb of data included because I'm adsl customer).
365 days plan
That's not really prepaid anymore though, is it?
It is in the sense that you have to buy credit that you can use for a year.
The TPG thing looks really interesting. I rarely make calls on my own phone, so paying $12/year just to have a phone isn't a bad deal in my book. I'd like to find a way to make use of the mobile data, but I'd probably need a new phone for that.
I too rarely make calls but I recently bought Nokia N97 so I need to move to plan which doesn't charge me $2 for every MB (TPG charge ~0.3c a MB). I love being able to check emails, surf web, download podcasts without needing a laptop.
When I was in Australia I used a small company called Savvytel. Per-minute, flagfall and SMS are far cheaper than other providers, and your credit does not expire.
The web page looks bad with all that rainbow, but think of them as the MSY of mobile providers.
They looked interesting, but the page on Whirlpool made them sound pretty scary. Lots of problems.
For what it's worth, I used them for 2 years with no problems, and if I moved back to Australia I'd sign up with them again. In fact I guess I still have my credit from when I left...
If there isn't, there should be. I'm sick of my provider stealing my money each month.
Virgin mobile has top ups that last for a year. I think it's any recharge over $50. Some plans, usually called 'caps' give you the tradeoff of a greater value for the credit you buy for a shorter expiry period and slightly higher rates for certain things.
Keep in mind that your phone, if it was purchased as a pre-paid, rather than outright may be locked on to a particular network. This means you have to keep using the same providers sim card, unless you get the phone unlocked.
What network are you currently with? You may just be able to buy a different kind of recharge or go on a different rate plan to get what you want.
[edit: punctuation]
Virgin seems pretty nifty if you know other people on the same network.
Bought the phone long ago, so unlocking won't be an issue.
Currently with Optus (and turns out they now do have 180 day expiry plan), but I'm starting to really resent being forced to pay $30+ on each recharge. They also send an obscene amount of promotional text messages.
Optus is BAD.
I've been with them for 10 years and the deal I've had all that time has been extremely competitive. However, they're changing some of the surrounding policies and my needs are changing.
Yeah, joining a company that most of the people you call are with has always been the best deal. I'd reccomend you go to a shop like allphones or dick smith that sells all providers and just compare the rates for each provider side by side.