Club Telco is rapidly becoming the go-to for broadband bargain hunters. Their gambit was to turn the typical consumer model for broadband on its head – instead of long contracts that penalize YOU if THEIR service is so bad that you want to leave, Club Telco charge a $50 annual membership fee, banking on their superior customer service to keep you coming back year after year.
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On top of that, their plans started out the same regardless of where you are – though that has changed. While there are now three tiers to their pricing depending on geography, at least they’ve remained consistent in their ability to charge you the same low price, regardless of whether you’re bundling in your line rental with them or not. It’s paying off- they’re easily the fastest growing broadband provider in Australia.
But how about their mobile plans? As per our article Should I use an ISP as a mobile provider?, most broadband providers wholesale an Optus connection and offer market prices, in an attempt to make sure customers aren’t enticed away by the competition’s attractive bundles. ISP-based mobile plans are rarely as innovative as their broadband plans.
Club Telco more or less falls into that category, at least for their lower prices. A sim-only provider (ie. no handsets, you have to BYO), they use the cap plan method of offering a certain amount of credit for a low price, and then charging high per-minute rates. The Club 20 cap, for $20 a month, comes with $200 credit and 500MB of data for users with smartphones. The Club 30 cap, $30 a month and with $500 credit, comes with a fairer 1GB of data, but is otherwise pretty unremarkable.
Where Club Telco has written new rules is with their Club Mega Cap, which is $60 a month and comes with Unlimited calls and text to Australian numbers, and a whopping 3GB data. That’s beatable (especially by players like Amaysim), but Club Telco offer an additional $100 worth of credit for International Calls. That makes Club Telco the only mobile provider (to date) to offer free international calls with their mobile plans.
So good on Club Telco for offering something different yet again, but make sure to read the fine print before taking them as a provider. The excess data rate (if you exceed your limit) is 50c/MB; that’s bad ($500 per GB), but at least it can partially come out of your call credit. On the MegaCap, it’s immediately charged extra. And while it’s fun to point out that at $44/MB, international roaming can cost you nearly $50,000 per GB, but who would use it? The answer is: NEVER USE INTERNATIONAL ROAMING NO MATTER WHO YOU’RE WITH.
For more information on Club Telco Mobile plans, call on 1300 138 155.