It is a truth universally acknowledged that prepaid mobile broadband dongles and hotspots get cheaper pretty quickly. Telstra has cut pricing on its prepaid Elite Wi-Fi Hotspot and USB dongles, slicing $30 off the former and $20 off the latter.
The hotspot has dropped in price from $129 to $99, while the dongle version is down from $99 to $79. Whichever model you favour, that’s a good saving, though dongles from rival providers remain cheaper (you can usually locate one under $50 and supermarkets regularly sell them for half that price).
Johann
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 2:06 PMBetter article:
Other than business users, does anyone actually still use these instead of just wifi/usb tether their phone?
Frosty
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 4:14 PMIf you get the Elite version and are in a good area then you get up to 21mbps speeds, more than most mobile phones can offer speed wise, that’s if speed matters more than cost like it does to me, I’ve had the Elite version on the Telstra $150/365 days/10gb pre-paid option for a while now and very impressed!
henry99
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 8:20 PMI bought a telstra USB model when they were $15. My phone is a voda, so the mhz ranges are different.
Husky
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 10:09 PMAs a uni student living in a rental with no landline, I use them exclusively. I also use them a lot to kill time at work, wifi isn’t everywhere you know, and my phone only gets a GB, my telstra dongle gets 7GB a month for $49.
Nathan
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 10:50 PMI get around 8-10 hours of battery life when I hammer my phone, and to be left without a phone is not an option. Enter portable wifi hotspot…
Dan Warne
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 2:35 PMHave to agree Johann, tethered smartphone is so convenient as it’s always in your pocket — I’m increasingly using that rather than a dongle nowadays. (Plus of course you don’t need a separate plan… though you do chew up your smartphone’s limited battery life…)
Max
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 4:22 PMWiFi modem is good choice if your phone uses different network. I’m with Amaysim, but Optus network performance is not that good as Telstra’s on the train. So getting prepaid modem with 10Gb for 12 months at $149 is a reasonable choice if you need reliable connection.
Jono
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 5:00 PMI can’t get ADSL at the moment as I’m in a new estate and i raked up a $700 phone bill tethering to my phone, I swear the stupid lady at the shop told me i’d get an sms when i was near my limit but that didn’t happen. Anyway I got a Telstra Ultimate WiFi and it’s so good, so quick, much faster than the ADSL I had at my old place and way more convenient without having to piss around with a phone line. Yes it’s expensive and I don’t get as many downloads as I’d like but I can take it anywhere I want to go
minorityrace
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 6:11 PMNow they just need to give a proper IP address and I’d be using their services.
Prepaid Plans
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 7:59 PMI am still predicting they will be giving them away at some stage and just increasing the unlock fee.
daryl
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 12:14 AMI was in a motel in Bright Victoria and the Telstra 3G was marginal and I found that my Telstra Ultimate was better than the iPhone 4 when providing internet to an iPad.