Telstra’s Ultimate USB 3G modem has finally been made available for general buyers, having been on sale for business customers since September. Telstra has also adjusted its higher-priced next G mobile broadband packages to offer more data.
The DC-HSPA+ enabled Ultimate modem is being offered on a range of BigPond Mobile Liberty plans (no sign of a pre-paid option yet, so you’ll need to sign up for a 24 month contract). The $59.95 a month plan now offers 7GB a month, and the top-priced 12GB plan is now $89.95. As ever with Telstra, the pricing can be confusing as there’s discounts offered for customers who bundle other products.
National coverage for Next G is pretty impressive, but claims regarding speed from Telstra do need to be taken with a pinch of salt. My own cross-country testing of the Ultimate USB suggested that it often has trouble meeting the claimed speeds, and I can’t imagine that situation improving with wider availability.
You could probably change the picture of a “connection time out”. I don’t believe it is indicative of an average user experience (slow – sometimes; drop outs – occasionally).
When the linked articles and the claims made therein are taken into account it could thus be considered that the picture above is a fairly accurate summation of the user experience that could be expected with the Ultimate hardware.
Hopefully Telstra will release updated software that squashes the bugs, but for the moment…