Vodafone Hutchinson’s clearly not that worried about overloading its mobile network if the new data caps it’s just announced are any indication. The company, which claims it’s now got 2.3 million Aussie customers using some kind of mobile broadband service (up a curiously specific 150.2% rise year on year, according to the press release) has announced increased data caps for contract customers on the Vodafone and Three networks.
At the cheap end of town, the $19 cap gets 100MB of included data (previously a hefty $2 per MB with no included data), the $29 cap quadruples its 50MB allowance to 200MB, $49 cap customers get 1.5GB and both $59 and $79 cap customers get 2GB.
As with all telco contracts there’s slight variations for business, unlimited and combo cap customers, as well as differing call inclusions to weigh up, and naturally, a couple of stated pitfalls.
Existing contract customers? You’re stuck with what you’ve got. New or upgrading customers? The new rules apply to 24 month contracts. As always, check the alternatives carefully (Lifehacker’s excellent Planhacker columns are a great place to start) before signing on the dotted line.
Kris
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 11:39 AMThey also apply to 12 months, customers on 3 or VF can upgrade plans at anytime by calling there respective care line
Peter McHardy
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 1:02 PMStill laughably crap.
Anthony Zeater
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 12:48 PMI’m pretty sure you can just call either 3 or Vodafone up and ask to change your cap without incurring any charges. That’s what I did and managed to get the new data caps :D
Richard Djordjevic
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 2:28 PMDid you have to extend the contract at the same time though?
Richard Djordjevic
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 8:31 PMTo answer my own question, they let me upgrade…I’m about 13 months into my contract and didn’t have to extend it.
Timmy Connor
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 1:59 PMNot like you could actually use this amount of data on their crappy network. I used to be Three then moved onto Telstra. Never looked back.
Arthur Lim
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 4:21 PMFirst the title says prepaid then the article talks about contracts? Brilliant journalism, I say.
Alex Kidman
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 8:10 PMFair point, mea culpa. Changed to contract now.
Daniel
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 4:24 PMWell they can each go and offer as much data as they like, but until they do something about the congestion on their networks you will never get anywhere near using the amount of data they offer.
From about 6 months ago the bandwidth from my USB modem from Three is at a crawl. After 3pm it slows right down and after 6pm you can forget it. The other night my bandwidth was sitting at 820bytes a second. This is fairly typical of what I get now.
My contact expires in two months and will change to ADSL2+ as soon as I can. I have complained to Three and surprisingly they have acknowledged that they have a bandwidth issue in the areas where I am using my Three internet. They kindly offered to transfer my internet to Vodafone which I refused (after testing the bandwidth by tethering my Vodafone mobile phone. Get same results). They then offered to cancel my account at their cost.
Was a great product when I first got it. Remember sitting on a train platform with my laptop and getting 420kb/s downloading software using download manager. Suited my needs nicely.
David Anderton
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 3:36 PMStill crap compared to Virgin smartcaps….
$29=1gb
$39=1.5gb
$49=2gb
etc….
Salmonpie
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 4:18 PMI am in a 24 month contract and Vodafone emailed me offering the new caps so now I have 2gb a month that I hardly use
Tom Reynolds
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 7:53 PMThis is rubbish. No rewards for existing customers. CHURN.
If my ISP (iinet) can roll out upgraded plans to existing customers (we started out on 60gig, now on 200gig with no cost change), then why do mobile companies screw us over?
Oh that’s right, we’re on contract.
With iinet, I am free to go when I like, so they care.
Darren Smith
Monday, September 13, 2010 at 1:57 PMExisting customers can absolutely be switched to new plans for free without extending the contract, you just have to ask. You can do this if the new spend is the same or higher than the current contract. Vodafone don’t automatically switch you because it is a contract that you’ve signed and sometimes the new plans have different call charges or bonus offers etc that might be less valuable for your particular circumstances