For a company dedicated to reducing its 1800 plus phone plans to a mere handful, the Peace of Mind and Extra Data mobile plans seems a return to the bad old ‘conditions apply’ days.
Peace of Mind refers to the ability to continue to use more data if you exceed your allowance. The catch 22 is that it only kicks on at $69 per month 30GB BYO sim only plans or larger.
And data over the limit is capped to a snail’s pace 1.5Mb/s download (let’s not even think about the infinitesimal upload speed). Oh, and Telstra reserve the right to slow the paltry speed even further in peak times.
OK, its better than nothing as it will avoid bill shock but all its good for is to trickle feed emails.
Oh, you want more. Well for a not so measly $10 per GB (or part thereof) you can switch on the Extra Data plan. It provides full-speed data. The catch 22 here is that it is either Peace of Mind (free but painfully slow) or Extra Data.
You can’t simply buy it if you know you will have a heavy use month. And once you upgrade to it, then it continues until you cancel. Presumably Peace of Mind returns.
If you are on a Telstra handset purchase or lease plan, then either plan cuts in at $59/3GB per month (plus handset repayment costs). But hang on, if it’s a BYO sim-only then $69 buys 30GB. WTF?
Handset plan users can get an all-you-can-eat data plan for $199 (plus handset costs).
Sorry it’s a convoluted, myopic way to extract more from users
GadgetGuy’s take. Peace of Mind? Confusion reigns supreme for a company trying to simplify things
Three BYO sim-only plans, five (well ten really) purchase/lease plans (admittedly with different inclusions that may or may not be useful). That is on top of four pre-paid, five Long Life Plus and a partridge in a pear tree.
If Telstra is serious, it would have realised that all the plethora of plans do is keep its marketing experts in a job creating gobbledygook to spin another sucker.
No wonder that simple pre-paid plans from MVNOs like Boost that use Telstra’s network are so popular.
Sorry, Telstra. A fail for this. Hope that gives you peace of mind.
