Guiseppe (08-11-18)
Ok, buy now all of us are aware our Optus $2 Days with unlimited everything, has gone to $3 a day.
So what was $730 a year for unlimited internet on 3G with speeds up to 30Mb/s
Is now $1095.. BUT, they have screwed the speed down i have measured speeds as bad as 250kb/s, but on average its around 5Mb/s
A long way from 20 to 30Mbs we all enjoyed for years and paid less for!!!
Apart from there might be a case for the TIO here
The cost has now become $100 a month!
What have others done?
Switched over to another provider? Happy to suck it up and keep your unlimited data?
I see Optus have a 4G SIM plans:
80Gb a month for $55
50Gb plan for $45
30Gb for $35
You get 4G not 3G ao i would hope/expect the faster speeds and connectivity 4G brings (very handy if pings times are an issue for you)
Boost also has a good PrePaid SIM if you want/need Telstra
Last edited by ol' boy; 08-11-18 at 11:47 AM.
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
Guiseppe (08-11-18)
Look Here -> |
Or this from Kogan for $1
Kogan Mobile Prepaid Voucher Code XL – New Customers Only
• Free SIM card included
• 32GB of data
• Unlimited standard national calls
• Unlimited standard texts and MMS
• All for use within Australia
• 30 day expiry
• No hidden fees
Voucher expires at 11:59pm AEDT on 14/01/2019.
Deal expires 11:59pm AEDT 23/12/2018 unless sold out prior or extended
Last edited by ol' boy; 08-11-18 at 11:43 AM.
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
At the moment I'm sticking with them. My use is basically for when I travel, and unlimited data is important to me. I still save despite the increase, because I'm only paying when I'm using it. Having said that, I would be furious with them if I was using it as my full-time main connection. Optus are shocking, so I wasn't surprised that they didn't even bother giving notice and tried to charge for a day when the phone was switched off and tucked away in a drawer. Having been in business for many years and seeing Telstra at their worst, I never thought I would say this. But Optus customer service and administration make Telstra at their worst look like genius's. Surprisingly, I have found the services themselves to be mostly trouble free once set up.
I have found the speed varies vastly from area to area. I have only ever got mediocre speeds using it at home, but get quite reasonable speeds from it at other places. I've never been so lucky as to get 20 or 30, but 14's and 15's through a router and wifi have not been uncommon. Last Christmas it was enough to stream HD Video and keep 3 children on their IPads happy watching Youtube videos.Only about 4 or 5 weeks ago, well after the price increase, I found the speeds to be fine.
Did you find the speed drop coincided with the price increase? It's quite easy for me to believe they would deliberately reduce the speed to force us out from what has been a very good plan, though I'm not sure whether this is what is in fact happening. It seems a little inept to do this now when telcos are starting to experiment with unlimited data, albeit still at high prices. But then we are talking about Optus.
Last edited by DB44; 08-11-18 at 11:54 AM.
100%
We have 3 of these SIMs and they have all showed the same behaviour (in different locations)
And friend has the same $2 SIM in his globesurfer and rang me complaining about speed an YouTube buffering
I started testing all of mine and they were down to 512KB... In the same device, same location, same tower as the last 5 years of 20mbs speeds.
So nothing has changed my end, not a thing.
I also stay at another address and get 15-20Mbs there also, i haven't been back there to test at that location
But there is enough posts on Whirlpool that concur with my findings
Sadly for us, they are our daily drivers, so the price and service is now questionable
I really cant complain, have had a great run, probably been using 4-5Gb a day for years
Last edited by ol' boy; 08-11-18 at 12:16 PM.
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
I think this was an aberration that occurred the first time I recharged after it went up to $3 a day. I recharged from a desktop rather than from the phone itself. My guess is that as soon as I recharged from the computer they tried to provision the new plan and counted this as a connected day. Was eventually fixed after an escalation and has not recurred. Shortly after I did visit a place near Wollongong in NSW and was still getting about 14 download. That may now have changed. I'll let you know after my next visit.
I can see that you have had fantastic value over the years. I haven't had mine as long, of course, but am still very happy. Even if it has outlived its usefulness it has still saved me money over the alternatives. By the way, I was not suggesting that you had changed anything on your side. My curiousity was about whether Optus was deliberately reducing speeds of it it was simply changes they had made in particular areas. From what you say it appears that they may well be deliberately reducing speeds. I will be very interested to see what speeds I manage to get the next time I use it, probably for a few days some time next month.
Yes, i was surprised there wasn't already a thread about it to be honest
Multi threads about it on Whirlpool and on Optus help forum.
We all knew the good times would come to an end one day.
Optus was getting a consistent revenue stream from its loyal $2 Day customers and they weren't going anywhere!
Seems most are now jumping ship and shopping around
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
I had a quick look on Whirlpool. Plenty of speculation and reports of poor speed, but no definitive answer. One speculation is that Optus are converting 3G spectrum to 4G spectrum. To be honest I'm not informed enough on the topic to evaluate if this is plausible, though if they haven't yet done this in some areas it would explain why my speed in at least one place is unaffected. I don't like the price increase but it is not particularly unexpected. It's still good value for me with my usage pattern. Spending $180 for 2 months of unlimited data beats any similar monthly plans by a country mile. Degraded service, of course, is another matter. The reality is that a TIO complain, whilst it costs us nothing but a bit of time, is unlikely to succeed, though service issue complaints probably have a slightly better chance than price complaints. But the fact is that at the end of the day we have had more than a fair go. If I do find the service has been substantially degraded at the Wollongong location, I may try to take it further just for an explanation.
Last edited by ol' boy; 08-11-18 at 03:30 PM.
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
Disgusting. Is worth at least asking for an explanation, though dealing with Optus is never easy and getting one will be like extracting teeth.
ol' boy (08-11-18)
To be honest, the times i've called them (years ago now) they have been good, i got credited or free days when i complained.
But you have to go through that "process" to finally bash into their heads what you told them from the outset
But, they were more than helpful or if not, credited my account for the lack of normal service
My 6 years of Ookla Speed Test History shows it in black and white, the speed fell off a cliff
Last edited by ol' boy; 08-11-18 at 03:43 PM.
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
DB44 (08-11-18)
I have a friend who has this SIM Card and we were only talking about the daily rate increase after I told him of Aldi had just increased their Data allocations and should he begin to look elsewhere.
He was fortunate too in that where he lives was in a good service area because it would not work here originally.
Although he's not a big Data user, its the Unlimited volume thats keeping him there as there are plenty of others offering Unlimited Calls and SMS like Boost, Aldi etc.
We have wondered how long this Unlimited Data will last and how will they shut it down if they do, Increase costs, load speeds, unreliability in Service reception but while its there, He's going to stay with it.
I stand unequivicably behind everything I say , I just dont ever remember saying it !!
I've just tried mine now. I was only ever getting about 4 to 5 Mbps here, sometimes less. It is not the best 3g reception area. I've just tried a couple of Ookla tests ranging from under 1 to 3.08 Mbps. Other places I was getting up to 15 Mbps. Now?
Optus has a new feature on its account page they are trialling. They invite you to open a case and promise a case manager will get back to you within 24 hours. I referred to my own tests, the reports on Whirlpool and asked for an explanation and whether they are in fact capping. Christmas time last year 3 kids were watching Youtube on their IPads while I was streaming an HD movie. Sounds like that won't be happening this year.
Guiseppe (08-11-18)
The SIM is my daily driver until end of Mar next year. I did test OVO 4G data for a month as a comparison. Better but not by much - I put it down to being in a hilly area ..
Speed test just now ping 55 and 7.93 download - upload did not complete. This is via WiFi to be fair ...
Only recharged once so far (EDIT: on the new rate) - no courtesy SMS alerting me that I was under $5.
Please keep us informed.
Last edited by Guiseppe; 08-11-18 at 04:59 PM.
If Australia is a democracy why, then, is voting compulsory?
"What has changed between the arrival of the First Fleet and today?"
"Wearing leg irons is now not required."
When I login to my account it appears directly under the Welcome under the dashboard. If you go to and login you should see a message informing you that they are trialling a new method of communication and a link to open a case.
I will of course post results if and when I am contacted.
Last edited by DB44; 08-11-18 at 07:11 PM.
Thank you, i just realised, i've never logged in, nor signed up.
Just been using the service with out that
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
Double Post.
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