Tag: shared data plans

Articles

Telstra Launches Shared Data Plans | Gizmodo Australia

Telstra expands shared data plans | ITNews

Telstra Mobile Data Sharing: Everything You Need To Know | Lifehacker Australia

From the horse’s mouth

Telstra

Product Sheet

My Comments

I have done some previous coverage about shared data plans popping up in other countries like the USA and France. These provide a common data-allowance pool amongst a group of devices you or, in some cases with “family plans”, your family owns.

Now Telstra has jumped on the bandwagon with a shared data option which costs AUD$20 per month for each device. At the moment they are offering 1Gb extra of data to plans operated by early adopters as an incentive to take up this service across the multiple devices.

This is available to people who are contracted with the “Every Day Connect” mobile-service plans whether these are on a “bring-your-own-device” basis or part of a subsidised-handset contract. Here, I would see these of value with the Every Day Connect 80 plan or plans above that plan and with more than 2 devices beyond the regular handset.

I find that the tariff chart for this service will need some work to make it more acceptable by most customers. For example, Telstra could offer more of the high-capacity plans with perhaps high-capacity voice and text service in conjunction with the data sharing as well as post a simple tariff per device per month. They could offer their “Mi-Fi” devices and USB modems or the tablets that they sell for a subsidised cost to customers who integrate them in to a data-share plan/

But as I have seen with Telstra, these kind of services are charged in a way to prop up their role as a universal telephony service provider. They could easily provide services like these at better prices if Australia adopted a universal-service-fund which all carriers had to put money to and this was used to fund the basic telephone service, the public payphones, the Triple-Zero emergency call service and similar essential services.

Article

Mobile Data Sharing Plans Coming | Telstra | The Age (Australia)

My Comments

I have covered “shared” and “family” mobile data plans previously on HomeNetworking01.info, infact with a summary article of where things are at with these plans along with fixed-line broadband plans for occasionally-occupied premises. It can rectify situations where you have more allowance on one device but not on another which was something I came across with a friend of mine where I had to coax their iPhone to tether properly with their PC so they can use that device’s allowance.

These plans typically allow a user to have multiple devices such as a smartphone, tablet, “Mi-Fi” or USB wireless-broadband modem share the same data allowance pool. The “shared” plan is typically for devices owned by one customer while the “family” plan allows devices belonging to members of the same family or household  to share the same allowance.

Now Telstra is making a commitment to offer these kind of plans to their customers because of the activity that is taking place in US and Europe with the plans. Here, analysts were saying that people would buy increased data allowances for these plans rather than buying the standard allowances provided for the individual devices. Of course, customers would backpedal on their data usage as they get close to the end of their allowance.

Personally, I would like to see the shared plans offer things like data allowances in the order of 3Gb to 5Gb to allow people to buy “buffer space” on their plans, application-specific billing options like “all-you-can-eat” multimedia streaming from partnered services like TuneIn Radio, Foxtel Go, ABC iView or Spotify or “all-you-can-eat” mobile telephony services. Similarly, it could be easier for a person who is currently on a device-linked post-paid plan to participate in one of these plans without having to pay an early-termination fee for that device.

These plans could allow a smartphone user who is putting off buying a tablet or other mobile-broadband device because of data allowance and billing complexities to buy these devices yet manage one allowance and one account. Similarly, they could allow a mobile-data user to right-size their data allowance to represent what they really use across the board.