When Telstra announced their new T-Box yesterday, they promised us new data bundles today. And for a company that has been doing its best to hang onto its “charge through the nose because we’re the biggest” pricing philosophy, the bundles are actually pretty good.
There are three new bundles, and they’re all detailed below:
Telstra Home 25GB Value Bundle at $109 per month for 24 months plus $35 upfront. This plan includes:
BigPond Elite™ Liberty – 25GB
T-Box or T-Hub
Unlimited local calls and $1 STD callsTelstra Home 100GB Ultimate Bundle at $139 per month for 24 months plus $35 upfront. This plan includes:
BigPond Elite™ Liberty – 100GB
T-Box or T-Hub
Unlimited local and STD calls
Unlimited calls to any Telstra mobile from your home phoneTelstra Home 200GB Ultimate Bundle at $159 per month for 24 months plus $35 upfront. This plan includes:
BigPond Elite™ Liberty – 200GB
T-Box or T-Hub
Unlimited local and STD calls
Unlimited calls to any Australian mobile from your home phone
$10 monthly credit towards International Direct Dial calls.
Obviously, you’ll need to spend some time reconnecting with the concept of a home phone line again to get these bundles. But the 200GB plan, which includes a crapload of data and unlimited calls to any Australian mobile for $159 a month? That’s actually really good!
All the bundles are also still eligible to be bundled with other bundles from Telstra (confused yet?). As in, if you have a Telstra mobile and Foxtel through the Big T, you can get them all on one bill and save some coin.
If you can’t decide between having the T-Hub or T-Box included in your bundle, you can take both for an extra $35 up front and $11 a month over 24 months, or just $299 up front. Or you can take neither, if you prefer.
Let’s face it… There are still better plans out there, and a large percentage of you guys – who know what you’re after when it comes to broadband – aren’t going to sign up to these plans. For a start, you’ve probably ditched your home phone number already. But for anyone who’s still attached to their landline and is stuck with Telstra, this is a massive improvement over their previous offerings. I’d even go so far as to say it’s a good deal. And considering there’s a large percentage of the population who don’t really have a choice of ISPs when it comes to getting faster internet, that’s a huge step forward for the big T.
[Telstra]
JT Marlin
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 12:05 PMThey still don’t get it! Why in the world would I want to pay for something I don’t use. ie the home phone line!
Travis New
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 3:01 PMTelstra are a telecommunications company first. Honestly you’re surprised that it includes a phone. Really? People who don’t want house phones are “still” the minority, not to say they won’t be the majority eventually. Until that day comes these bundles hit a wider demographic.
Bobbobboy
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 12:21 PMAs you say this really isn’t a good deal. Its a lock in.
Telstra like most Telcos wants to be a media company and sell content. They will fail like most Telco’s that want to become media players. Most users
Sure this article shouldn’t be appearing as an advertisement on your site ? It appears to me all your doing is copying their press release and then telling us its not such a great deal apart from people who are going to use telstra anyway.
Jared Smith
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 12:40 PMIf only the wireless plans weren’t such a fucking rort.
James
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 5:47 PMHi mate,
I happen to know what is going on inside the big T, and i can say that if you want good mobile plans then hang around for a bit cause this is only the beginning of a massive change here.
p.s. NBN means that they buy our PSTN stuff…which means we dont need to sell phone lines…which means we will release plans with all of the good stuff minus the phone…stick around :)
moloko
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 12:43 PMexpensive
Mememe
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 1:39 PMThe problem here of course is that, as always, Telstra include both uploads and downloads in that “MASSIVE” download limit. I would imagine for the majority of Gizmodo readers that severely limits the potential of this deal.
This is especially grating for me considering I can only get Telstra supplied ADSL2 -_-
Nate
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 2:39 PM“the bundles are actually pretty good” … Nick… are you STONED?
Marco
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 2:53 PMI refuse to give any money to Telstra.
Jamie Carl
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 2:55 PMI think he IS stoned. I pay $105 with iiNet and get 120GB.
Rusty
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 3:03 PMBlatant Telstra advert. These are poor value plans compared with any other, and that’s not counting thier upload counting trap. Gizmodo now removed from my RSS feeder
kazemizuhi
Friday, June 18, 2010 at 6:53 AMThe article is about ‘bundles’ not ‘plans’. The difference being a ‘bundle’ includes a number of different ‘plans’. Furthermore, while these may not cater to your needs, there are demographics out there who would benefit from them. Not to mention for those people who ‘must’ use Telstra due to their geographical location are better off ‘bundling’ their Telstra services as a bundle is cheaper than the sum of it’s parts.
Another thing not mentioned in the article is the cheaper international call rates for the Ultimate Bundle. Also not mentioned are the Entertainment Bundles which include Foxtel. All things considered these are pretty good deals for those that need them.
While it can be argued that their prices are sometimes dear, there’s a reason for that. That massive income allows them to have the best coverage and strongest signals for their mobile and wireless infrastructures. It also allowed them to roll out their 100Mbps Cable trial in selected areas of metropolitan Melbourne at the end of last year. It’s also the reason their HSPA+ network for NextG is pushing 42Mbps, the fastest in the world (alongside Sweden).
Colin Richardson
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 3:10 PMInternode thanks.
Even if we Bushies still have to have the phone connected through a Telstra line!
It will take a lot more than these prices to bring me back to the bastards. Like Aussie based call centres staffed by people with whom you can communicate!
I agree with the comment above, how about actually doing a price-comparison rather than copy and paste?
Rhys
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 4:28 PMDid you guys read the artical? he specifically states “Let’s face it… There are still better plans out there, and a large percentage of you guys – who know what you’re after when it comes to broadband – aren’t going to sign up to these plans.” and then goes on to qualify saying that for people who are stuck on telstra gear (and there is alot of them) its a damn good deal. And it is.
gargravarr
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 4:50 PMHa Ha. It’s not April 1. Reasonable? I just switched to a newly offered plan with my provider and will now get 100 gigs of ADSL 2+ goodness for $59.95 a month (bear in mind I’m in a regional area). This is $10 a month less than I was paying for 40 gig a month. I would love a naked ADSL plan but they don’t offer one yet. Try again, Telstra.
James
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 5:50 PMWe are releasing naked ADSL plans
MarkFugs
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 5:05 PMSheesh, so many haters jumping the gun and crying foul of a “Telstra advert”. Read the last paragraph you noobs. It probably applies to you.
gargravarr
Friday, June 18, 2010 at 3:20 PMGee, thanks for setting me/us straight. Explain why people who have no choice (according to the last paragraph you pointed out), should get a worse deal than the rest of us. Or don’t. It won’t change the perception that Telstra should be the best value ISP and they aren’t. By a long way.
Matt
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 9:34 PMActually pretty good if you want to pay more money for something you could pay less for. Telstra, you will die off with the baby boomers you sell your crap to.
James
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 5:51 PMMate, who do you think is going to be running the company when they die…..the same generation that you belong to – time change and people need to see this – Telstra finally is.
Ramathorn
Friday, June 18, 2010 at 2:20 AMTelstra has never been a company that offers the lowest or the cheapest of anything. its a premium service and like anything in the world you pay for what you get.
telstra mobile signals are better than any other carrier by milestones. thier internet down time is around 2 minutes for the year compared to the nearest competitor (optus) at 14 days.
so although this may still be expensive in terms of raw price, quality of service has brought telstra to the the forefront of th competition with thier new internet plans and mobile caps.
its like comparing kmart and David Jones. if Armani brought down thier prices but its was still twice the price of a regular shirt, Armani would be better value.
Telstra Sux
Friday, June 18, 2010 at 2:17 PMBahhhh Humbug.
Telstra monopoly deals, are still the scummiest deals going with the worst service to back them up.
What? Is it 25G – including upload and download – all on a 56K modem, with 4 hour sessions?
No? – Telstra’s deals still stink of highway robbery.
Solange
Saturday, June 19, 2010 at 12:45 PMWe have a “small business” in the service industry which is run from a home office and believe it or not many of our customers want to ring a land line cause it’s cheaper. We also have a large family and kids who do not have a mobile (cause they can’t pay for one) Our telstra landline bill for the month is about $300 with 3/4 calls to mobiles. Then $70 for Broadband. I cannot find any “competitor” plan that come close to the new $148 plan(without tbox and thub) which includes line rental, all calls to local, std and all mobiles and then 200GB ADSL2 which is way more than we need. And yes over the years I have tried most carriers but Reliability is why I have changed back to Telstra in recent times. So I am one very happy telstra customer. And by the way the only ones I know who don’t have a landline are aged between 16-25 and obviously this is not aimed at them.
Solange
Saturday, June 19, 2010 at 1:06 PMiinet comparison for 200GB and free local and std calss is $170 a month and still have to pay for calls to mobiles.
James
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 5:56 PMGuys, before you bag telstra (which i know is the thing to do when monday is going slow), please note that there is ALOT of free stuff that you get with Telstra – heaps of unmetered content; News, sport, weather, finance, AFL, NRL (pretty much any sport) Heaps of free VOD, free streaming, free live stuff, free game servers, free (and cheap) game downloads, music (cheaper then i-tunes), moives, AND we are soon to be releasing about 80 new IPTV channels to the market (october).
So before you bag us, at least check it all out – unfortunatly the morons over at marketing dont really push the stuff i just mentioned.
p.s. Im happy to try and answer all questions.
Rod Hocker
Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 2:17 PMI wish I found out about this new bundle a few months ago.
I’m stuck with pair gain and there are no more lines available in my street.
My current/old ISP now allows adsl2 thru my exchange but I cannot access it, so I’m stuck at 1500+.
I say my old ISP as they only have a slower 512 speed with a larger 100gig package.
By going to the $148 Telsta bundle I have 10 times more data and don’t have to worry about mobiles and std calls.
I also save $20.00 a month on my stand alone line combined with my ISP fees.
My wifes job demands that we have a land line.
We also get $10 a month to call the relo’s OS.
Cheaper Better Faster got all 3 with this package.
Mind you we only signed up today.
Thanks Telstra!
jay
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 12:26 PMTelstra is running a scam. Optus is the best as their bundle prices are reasonable.
Telstra is introdusing this optical cabel insted of copper to new areas and this is a cunning act. Guys just go wireless if you can. Dont by Telstra. Cos I did the same.