Thread: Telsta pre-paid wireless broadband

That price I think is only for the starter kit with about 750 m/b of down load,them you top it up,by buying more.....It just that my son was telling me about it.....

Hi,
I just bought one for limited use...that's all good for...just checking emails and odd surf...They charge 8c/MB when recharging around $30-50 mark so not flash. Handy for out and about, but would get normal BB for DL'ing.
Pretty slow really.
Paul

Well, like everything telstra they charge through the nose.

Over all when I have used them out in the sticks they have done what I wanted. It does seem to drop out from time to time though and getting an external aerial was a right pain in the back side. I ended up taking it to some comms specialists who cut and ran new coax so I could put a normal fme connector on it so I could have an external aerial and it runs much better now.

You should be able to just get a 3g phone to have similar capabilities though so I'm not sure I'd go the actual internet modem route I'd just go a telephone.

My friend often sits on the train surfing with his one which impresses me but..... they are just so darn expensive. The 3g nes by three (3) seem to be far better priced.

The price is comparable to the post-paid "plan" prices for wireless broadband, e.g pre-paid 3.5gb $80; post-paid 5gb $90. The sweetener for going on a plan is that the device is free and you get half-price for a year if you sign up for three years.

It all depends on how you want to use it. I wanted wireless broadband that would replace my home cable broadband so that I could have broadband with the same funtionality both at home and when travelling in a caravan. I went with the Bigpond Home Network Gateway which is a combined wireless broadband modem (on Telstra's NextG network) and wifi router. I wanted the router so that I could continue to run a home network and use a VoIP phone. If I just wanted to connect a single PC/laptop to wireless broadband I would have bought the Bigpond version of the pre-paid Telstra kit.

If you only want wireless broadband occasionally and/or you don't want to commit to a plan the Telstra kit is probably the way to go. The other carriers may offer cheaper plans but their coverage is nowhere near as good and I have heard horror stories of slow speeds and frequent dropouts.

Stephen.

In May 2007 I bought a next G phoneplan for zero and $30 2 year contract including a car kit which can be hard wired to an antenna. ZTE.
I know the line to bitch starts here.
Mine has been fine except for battery life. It comes with a cable and software to become a modem.
Anyway, you can buy a data kit from TELSTRA (not Bigpond) for as long as you want, so if you are going bush for say 8 weeks you buy a data pack, AFAIK $89 for 1gig per month and you cancel as soon as you get back.
I think this is the cheapest way to have a country modem while travelling, and you can get phone only now for $20 a month and zero up front.
Regards Philip A

I was looking at these for missus moose, but i decided they are waaayy too expensive at the moment.

Don't forget if you're looking at them that telstra count uploads as well, ie, the stuff both coming and going from your computer counts as "downloads".that can make a big difference.

I looked at the bigpond plans and couldnt justify the expense. Got a vodaphone usb modem for $25 per month on a 2 year contract with 1 gig a month. I have used my next g phone but it gets a tad expensive at 50 cents a meg, works well though and gives me another option when I really need broadband.
Regards,
Tote

Granted NextG is more than twice the price of Vodafone, if you're travelling it's worth more than twice that price in terms of coverage. Having used Vodafone and having it regularly drop out in the Sydney CBD, only getting dialup speed in Newcastle and not even getting connection in Cairns, it was an easy decision to go for NextG - I've even used it on the Nullarbor