Virgin Mobile Has Upped Its Data Inclusions On Contract Plans

Virgin Mobile is increasing the data allowances on its more expensive mobile plans — a sensible move given recent increases by most of its rivals.

When we rounded up the prices for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge (which goes on sale today, as it happens), we pointed that the data allocations on Virgin’s plans were much lower than Optus. Since both use the same network (and indeed Optus owns Virgin), there was no logical reason at all to sign up for the much less generous Virgin plans.

The adjustments Virgin makes today mean that it is now more competitive with Optus — at least for a while. It is adding an additional 500MB of data to its $40, $50 and $60 plans, an extra 1GB of data to its $70 plan, 2GB to the $80 plan and 3GB to the $100 plan. If you buy online rather than in a Virgin Mobile outlet, you also get an additional 500MB on the $60 and under plan, and an additional 1GB on the $70 and over options. The $30 plan is unchanged.

Here’s what that means you’ll get as inclusions for each of the changed plans:

Note the fine print, though: this deal is only in place until May 31. You either have to migrate from a non-Optus-network plan or resign from an existing Virgin plan — which means it isn’t available to existing Optus customers. There’s clearly very little incentive to buy in store under this arrangement. If you buy online, you get slightly more data on the $80 plan than with Optus, and the same amount on the $100 plan.

Virgin is continuing with its postpaid perk that lets you roll over unused data from one month to the next. That’s a useful extra, but it does only operate from one month to the next — you can’t bank up data for six months and then use it when you go on holidays.

Virgin Mobile thus joins Optus and Telstra in having recently increased data inclusions. Given that, we’re imagining that Vodafone will be increasing its allowances soon.