Netflix is launching in Australia in a couple of weeks, so it’s good timing for Optus to get on board with streaming video. If you’re a new or re-contracting Optus customer — whether it’s for home broadband, or for postpaid or prepaid mobile or mobile broadband — you can pick yourself up a free Netflix subscription.
On the face of it, the deal looks pretty sweet. Starting on the Netflix Australia launch date of March 24, if you sign up to Optus, you’ll get yourself a six-month free subscription to Netflix. There are caveats, of course; the plan you sign up to has to be worth $60 or above on a 24 month contract.
If you sign on the dotted line for a prepaid mobile phone or mobile broadband service with Optus — which necessarily means there’s no ongoing contract — you’ll score yourself a three-month subscription to Netflix. The deal that Optus is struck means that it’s not exactly a middleman, but when you sign up for a new Optus plan you’ll get a coupon code that gives you three or six months when you sign up to the Aussie version of Netflix.
Optus is setting itself up as one of the premier ISPs for Netflix addicts in Australia, since it’ll let you stream that Netflix goodness without impacting your (home broadband) data quota in the slightest. That deal starts from 17 April, a couple of weeks after the initial launch, because there’s a bit of technical behind-the-scenes work that still has to be done. Similarly, you’ll be able to access Netflix on Optus’ Fetch TV service, and even on mobile the automatic data top-up bumps you up to the next data tier (adding 1GB at a time for $10 at a time) if you hit your cap with a sneaky bit of Netflix streaming on the bus into work.
Optus doesn’t have any more information to share right now on the exact details of the unmetered data partnership, but going on what Netflix has told Gizmodo previously, it could involve access to a locally hosted server with Netflix content on it. We’re still checking in with Optus on the finer points of the Netflix deal — whether you’ll be able to watch unmetered on any device, for example. We’ll let you know as soon as they get back in touch. [Optus]