Two out of three of Australia’s biggest mobile providers now have high-speed 4G for both postpaid and prepaid customers, with Optus joining Telstra in offering the LTE service across the board for all customers.
Launching this week, Optus is making 4G connectivity available to prepaid customers, allowing anyone on its network to bring a fourth-generation network compatible handset – like the Samsung Galaxy S3 4G, Apple iPhone 5, and HTC One XL – and gain access to the Optus 4G network offerings in Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Surfers Paradise.
“Since launching Optus 4G earlier this year, we have seen an incredible amount of interest from our customers,” said Michael Smith, Managing Director of Marketing at Optus. “We’re excited about the range of offerings that are launched today to meet the demand for prepaid 4G, so prepaid customers can tweet, post, like and share on Optus 4G speeds this holiday season.”
Aware of how much its customers like social networking, the prepaid social plan by Optus will cater to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn addicts, as well as those who love reporting where they are on Foursquare and buying things on eBay.
The social plan launched this week is available in price ranges from $30 to $100, with included data ranging from half a gig to five gigabytes, and works across Australia for 28 days (not quite a month).
Not all phones may be immediately compatible with the Optus network, and may require some manual updating of the mobile access point name (APN) to work properly. As it stands, the Samsung Galaxy S3 4G and Apple iPhone 5 are the only currently available 4G phones Optus currently suggests for use, though it’s likely other phones could function on the Optus LTE network.
