We all know that using your phone on a roaming plan overseas can be a fast way to run up ludicrous bills, especially if you use data services as well. Who is the biggest offender in that field right now? It turns out the answer is Optus.
Dan Warne at Australian Business Traveller analysed the data roaming rates offered by Optus, Telstra and Vodafone, and found that Optus’ $20 a megabyte roaming rate put it well ahead of competitors. You can get slightly cheaper rates by prepaying in advance, but using any kind of data roaming exercise overseas is still a hugely expensive exercise. While Optus is due to introduce cheaper roaming plans as part of its membership of the Bridge Alliance group of telcos, that hasn’t actually happened yet.
As ever, we’d advise focusing on using Wi-Fi networks when overseas. Even if you’re paying your hotel $20 a day for the privilege, it will likely work out cheaper than data roaming. The other useful alternative is a local prepaid SIM. Hit the article for more price comparisons across the networks.
Optus is Australia’s worst network for data roaming pricing [Australian Business Traveller]
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