New plans offer massive data bonus

THE nation’s addiction to data on devices has led to more telcos supersizing their offers for those chewing through large chunks each month.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows about 86 per cent of Australian homes have access to the internet and while most are doing so through a computer, this is followed closely behind those using their smartphones and/or tablets.

Consequently they are eating through more data than ever before, prompting telcos to roll out data-only deals. This includes Amaysim which recently started a no-lock offer, which includes a 50GB deal for $65 a month or 70GB for $80 a month.

Telco comparison website WhistleOut’s spokesman Joseph Hanlon said these deals highlighted the demand for large quantities of data and could result in households ditching fixed broadband or NBN deals in the home.

“The idea is you stick the SIM into a tablet or you have a portable modem that you can get and you can share that data provided with devices other than your phone in your house,’’ he said.

“Some plans are 70 gigabytes a month so you start to wonder whether you go without a fixed line internet plan and maybe not choose an NBN plan and instead choose one of these options instead.”

Many of these deals are being offered via the Optus 4G network.

Amaysim group’s mobile commercial director Maik Retzlaff said their latest deals had been rolled out to better suit data-hungry consumers.

“People want enough data available to put it into their iPads, tablets or dongles and use it as a substitute for fixed wireless broadband,’’ he said.

“When we looked at the market we found a lot of our competitors don’t have enough data available for their customers to give them enough to cover their daily needs.

“When we looked at their usage we found they were chewing through out 2GB per day to use their devices as a substitute.”

Mr Hanlon said there are some deals that offer up to 200GB a month, but they don’t come with pocket-sized modems, instead they are fullsized modems, which doesn’t suit everyone.

To use Netflix in highdefinition quality chews through about 3GB per hour, downloading a movie uses about 4GB, while watching YouTube chews up about 12 megabytes per minute.