Setting up a mobile plan for yourself can be frustrating and confusing. Setting up a mobile plan for everyone in your immediate family may seem like a thankless and overwhelming task, but there are some great reasons why you should consider getting everyone in your family on the same plan.
Click here for the best cap plans.
We'll help you cut through the overwhelming amount of information out there to find the best plans and provider for your family, so you can enjoy some of the advantages of signing everyone up with the plan that will both suit them and suit the other members of the family.
Things to keep into consideration when finding a mobile plan for everyone in your family are:
- Providers generally give you free calls to somebody else on the same network – so if you're all signed up with Virgin, for example, you won't have to pay for the calls you make to each other.
- If you sign everyone up at once, you can have a central account with which to manage and keep track of everyone's plans.
- Everyone's on the same schedule – your contracts will all expire at the same time. This means that you'll all upgrade at the same time!
The same plan is not going to suit every member of your family – but signing up with a provider who can offer a plan that suits every member of your family is a good idea. It saves time, money, and effort, and it helpfully coordinates things for you so that you can avoid some of the fuss and fiddliness involved in managing your mobile phone plans.
Don't be overwhelmed by choice!
If you're a pretty standard family – two adults, a couple of kids in their teens, maybe you want to hook the grandparents up with a mobile connection as well, you could need four or five plans for the whole unit. Let's take a look at three of the biggest and best mobile providers and see whether or not they're family friendly enough to make things simple.
Click here for advice on controlling your teenager's phone use!
Optus
We've written about Optus a lot at sister site Compare Broadband; they're great for their home WiFi plans and are super family friendly for the family who make a lot of calls. But how do their mobile plans hold up? Let's take a look.
Optus cap plans start at $30 per month – a reasonable price for a light user. Unfortunately, light plans aren't what Optus do well; the $30 is a good price, but it only includes $200 of included value and 200MBs of data, making this plan light even for the lightest user.
Further up the range, though, Optus starts to improve. The $55 Optus Plan offers $650GBs per month and 1.5GB of data, along with some great phones offered on the plan for no additional handset charges – like the Nokia Lumia 710, Motorola RAZR, and Samsung Galaxy S II.
For heavier users, you can go further up, paying $80 or $100 per month for more generous allowances, but Optus is really best in that midrange.
Generally, Optus tend to offer great handsets, free calls and text messages to other people on Optus plans, and twenty-four month contracts. They're best for a family of "medium users" who want to take advantage of Optus's great network coverage.
Call Optus for more information or to sign up on 1300 137 897.
Vodafone
Vodafone have received some bad press in recent months around their network coverage, and in their effort to improve that, they've made themselves one of the most attractive providers out there. With a great new network guarantee, price-breaking barriers on the iPhone 4S, and 12 month contracts available, Vodafone are one of the most competitive providers you'll find in Australia.
Though their twelve month contracts are certainly attractive, the best value is to be found – as with any company – on a twenty-four month contract.
Vodafone are great all rounders. Sadly, like Optus, their light $29 Cap is a little too light, with only $180 included value and 200MBs, but unlike Optus, you can get some pretty good plans on this cap without paying crazy expensive handset fees – like the Nokia Lumia 800 for only an extra $10 per month, or the Samsung Galaxy S II for no added extra handset cost.
Some of Vodafone's best plans can be found around the $49 or $59 mark, although we wish they'd include a little more data than usual. Again, we'd like to stress the plethora of great phones available on Vodafone plans.
Generally, Vodafone are the best for their handsets. Their plans are pretty average – not in a bad way! – but they offer incredible discounts on a range of popular phones from Apple to Samsung to HTC. They also do unlimited Vodafone to Vodafone calls on most providers, and their flexibility within the network guarantee means they're one of the friendliest providers to deal with. Great for families who care more about their shiny new technology than exactly what they do with it.
Call us for more information about Vodafone on 1300 850 518.
Virgin
Virgin are an interesting provider in the way they offer flexibility, recognising that people use their phones in different ways. Their phones vary from plan to plan – they usually price handset costs fairly high, but on the plus side, Virgin offer a great range and you're almost sure to be able to get the phone you want.
So what kind of user are you?
Does someone in your family use their phone for a lot of calls? The Virgin $29 Big Cap offers a massive $450 included call credit, much more than comparable plans from other providers, along with 250MB of data.
What about someone who tends to ignore the call option and mostly sends text messages? Virgin will give your teenage boy a new way to communicate in words rather than grunts, with unlimited free texts and 2GB of data on the Fair Go $49 Cap.
Virgin are also notable for having one of the best unlimited cap plans: the Topless $89 Cap offers unlimited texts along with unlimited standard local and national calls, and 4GBs of data, making Virgin the top pick for the user heavy. They also offer cheap international rates to certain countries, which is great if you have relatives living abroad.
Generally, Virgin are useful for the family that has a lot of different types of users within the house! They also offer a great range of phones for you to take your pick from along with the range of plans available, and like the other providers, free calls and texts to other Virgin mobiles is a given.
Call Virgin for more information on 1300 768 103.
Amaysim and Dodo
Amaysim and Dodo offer two alternatives to the standard 24 month contract with a phone. If your family is already happy with the phones you have, you might want to take these SIM only plans on for less than $40 per month.
The Amaysim Unlimited SIM Only Post-Paid Plan, for $39.90 per month, offers unlimited calls (including to 13/1800 numbers) and texts along with 4GB of data on a 0 month contract. You can bring your own mobile number along, if you wish to keep the same one that you have had previously. This is available on a 0-month contract. Call Amaysim for more information or to sign up on 1300 302 942.
The Dodo Prepaid Unlimited Magic SIM, for $39.90 per month, includes unlimited standard calls (including to 13/1800 numbers) and texts, along with 5GB of data. The plan also includes 100 international minutes for calls to specific countries, and is available on a 0-month contract. Call Dodo for more information or to sign up on 1300 136 793.
It's also worth thinking about prepaid plans for younger children who may just be starting high school; click here for a good introduction to the best prepaid plans.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to call us on 1300 850 518.