I have a mobile phone with a provider that uses the Telstra network -that gives the best coverage anywhere around here.
Found out something interesting the other day. Mobile resellers using the Telstra network don't have access to the full network but instead just the Telstra "wholesale network". The Telstra network is claimed to cover 99.4% of the population (not area). The wholesale network they provide to resellers covers 98.8% of the population -sounds like very little difference but that represents some substantial coverage area differences.
BƎLONG (https://www.belong.com.au/) Mobile, fully owned by Telstra, offers some of the cheapest phone plans available (would you believe $10/month for unlimited calls and texts plus 1GB data?). But they only get the smaller network as a reseller.
This link (https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=766bbf24-2fed-11e9-9dba-0edaf8f81e27) gives an interactive map showing the coverage are difference between the networks. Hold your mouse button down to slide the divider across the map.
I have had that plan for a while with no problems.
The only downfall is they deduct from your credit card every month
We also use Belong for our internet with fast downloads
If you use Belong as your internet provider they no longer have a phone number to call for technical issues or faults.
You have to go on the internet and send them a message thru your account, a bit hard when you cannot get onto the internet.
Our internet was down for several days and they didn't contact us to fix the problem so have given them the flick.
We now have 500GB a month for the same price as before and much faster download speed as well.
I've been with iiNet for about 20 years. When I started with them I'd get about 15 gig a month split between peak and off peak for $59.95 including phone line rental.
Little by little they increased the amount of data with no cost increase.
Now I'm on the NBN with 500 gig a month for the same cost still with monthly phone rental included in that.
It's the slowest NBN speed but it is about 20% faster than ADSL which I was perfectly happy with being from the old dial up modem era with a 9600 baud modem.
Quote from: 'gweidion' pid='124315' dateline='1612489345'I've been with iiNet for about 20 years. When I started with them I'd get about 15 gig a month split between peak and off peak for $59.95 including phone line rental.
Little by little they increased the amount of data with no cost increase.
Now I'm on the NBN with 500 gig a month for the same cost still with monthly phone rental included in that.
It's the slowest NBN speed but it is about 20% faster than ADSL which I was perfectly happy with being from the old dial up modem era with a 9600 baud modem.
We have also been with iinet for may years and like you we received extra data along the way at no extra cost.
We are now on NBN50 plan which cost about $80 a month, with unlimited download. At times the speed is even
better than 50, so pretty happy with that.