staff memo via whirlpool
Optus licence agreement for Woolworths Mobile ends this Tuesday 1st October - SIM packs to be removed & no longer sold
tonester on 29/09/2013 - 01:08
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First they get rid of their personal clitoris massager, now the sim cards… What's next? Pizza?
First they get rid of their personal clitoris massager, now the sim cards… What's next?
Damn religious nutters ;) anyway grabbed a spare sim today $2 ;)…oh and apologies if you are a R.N. no offence…
Could be as Optus wants to consolidate its business into one brand. They did the same to Boost in January.
According to Lifehacker in October 2012"Optus’ announcement says it wants to consolidate its prepaid customers onto a single brand. Despite, it will apparently continue to operate Virgin Mobile, which offers both prepaid and contract options."
I bet Virgin will be gone by end of 2014…. mark my words
Why? Optus owns it. Will be interesting if they do give up the licence, Virgin proper might step and and run a telco here.
Vodafone owned Crazy Johns and they shut it down… why keep a product/brand that sells your product for less when you can move them to your usual brand and make more money from it.
Optus is rationalising their brand and taking back all their franchise stores, virgin will go.
After reading that staff memo, I have a feeling that the 'foreseeable future' for current customers will turn out to be pretty brief - at least as far as the current plan offer is concerned.
It would be nice to think that there might be a role for the ACCC in the final wash-up of the current - and decidedly fishy - telco push for 'brand consolidation'.
Was just about to sign up a family member to Woolworths mobile, it seemed they were the cheapest option for someone who needed a fair bit of data. Won't be signing up now, I imagine they'll be shafting existing customers onto some Optus product soon enough.
But it seems to be the trend that all the cheaper offerings are exiting the market! Can't find anything at the moment that even comes close to my current plan (Vaya $11)
you can still get it and use it now, if that does happen just port out
The grandfathered Vaya $11 is the ultimate deal
It is indeed :-)
So we should stock on SIM cards, they'll be wroth some $'s on ebay, just like Aldi Mobile.
Damn these consolidations, I got booted out of CrazyJohns 2mths ago, moved to Dodo, who promptly double the price of their data pack, so I was about to move to Woolies….I wonder if I move to Telstra if they'll go belly up?
If you do, let me know. I'd prefer not to lose my investment ;)
Maybe you could hire out your company killing skills :).
Look into Vaya, they seem solid and reliable.
still remember when i first came to study in australia late 2011, they had those woolies sims with half price recharge. bought so much of those it lasted me whole first year! Too bad plans as cheap as this no longer exist. What a shame.
So the "Optus Open network" is only open to Optus?
I suspect Optus will keep reselling as they need to money to roll out their 4G network.
But the days of cheap data (such as the Woolies $29 with 5Gb) are over.
They're following Telstra's theory of faster speed via less congestionI like how at the bottom of the article there's a link to alternative mvnos and Woolworths Mobile is 4 on the list, lol..
i believe that it will still be usable for customers for 12 months, i'll milk it till then!
Damn just found out about this after a friend which I recommended to go with this option went to replace his defective SIM and found out that they are no longer offered.
So what options are left for the savvy bargainer now?
Aldi mobile is looking good, or virgin,vaya
Virgin is not competitive at all and in any case would not go back to them after the way they shafted us last time we signed a contract with them.
Aldi seems to be the best unlimited option although for $5 more I'd consider using Boost on the Telstra 3G network.
Vaya seems to be the only option left at the cheaper end of the scale (and offer 4G!). There is still a big gap between their $18 and $37 plans, in fact I don't understand the $37 plan AT ALL. It's almost $20 more for only $200 cap credit and 500mb extra… Doesn't make sense.There is no doubt that prices are going up and we the consumers have less and less options being offered. I wish some regulatory body would be looking into what's going on!
yeah but why are they closing, if it's just price then why is it not a price increase?
possibly the accc had enough complaints. maybe the plan is for telstra to take back a monopoly.
crazy johns - vodafone
redbull - vodafone
Kogan - telstra
woolies - optusYeah previous dealing with Virgin makes me not want to go back.
The aldi one is interesting, they do use (most of the( NextG network.
And from other people's posts, if you don't use the $10 int'l credit, the $10 rolls over so you only need to pay $25 for the next top up.Personally I like the PAYG, if only they had a 1Gb for $10 option.
sign up to aldi can be a hassle. they wanted me to send photo id
Aldi are on the NextG network? Sweet!
It's also a bit of a headache to get a SIM for them here in WA. But if what supabrudda says is correct it may be worth it, $25 unlimited on NextG sounds like a winner to me!
Yeah I've only read about it on whirlpool a few months ago.
There's something about having $3 left….So I believe the way it works is that you have $10 int'l credit, then you top up $28 before your last recharge expires, then you can buy the $35 unlimited from your credit.
there's some talk about it here
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2122505Aldi don't use NextG… only standard 3G.. so no 850MHZ max speed 7.2
NextG doesn't mean anything other than whatever Telstra want it to mean. Aldi use WCDMA/UMTS/HSPA on 850MHz exactly the same as Telstra, given that it is the telstra network.
The only differences are:
- A few towers are excluded
- The speed is cappedtelstra have 3G network which runs on 2100MHZ this is the network sold to Aldi
the 850MHZ network is NextG and its not sold to Aldiexample:
was in weipa recently, they ONLY have NEXT G.. i called aldi for my friend as his phone would not work and was told
"Aldi does not use 850mhz, only 2100mhz and regional 900mhz"So.. Aldi don't use NextG… only standard 3G.. so no 850MHZ max speed 7.2
Telstra have 3G network which runs on 2100MHZ this is the network sold to Aldi
the 850MHZ network is NextG and its not sold to AldiWrong. Telstra have very little 2100 and I don't even know if Aldi gets it. They DO get 850.
"Aldi does not use 850mhz, only 2100mhz and regional 900mhz"
They lied. Or more likely the person you talked to has no idea and just made it up.
You've got it arse-about-face Aldi use the 850 NextG network (well most of it). they don't use the 2100 old 3G Telstra network which was only in capital cities & surrounding area (gold coast, the Gong, etc). Telstra have pretty much switched it off. They shared it with Three.
Telstra don't own 900Mhz spectrum for 3G, only Optus & Voda. You really have been given some bum info
In Melbourne, I've seen heaps of Aldi sims in the city (Franklin St) & Brunswick.
Damn just found out about this after a friend which I recommended to go with this option went to replace his defective SIM and found out that they are no longer offered.
So what options are left for the savvy bargainer now?Find someone who has a stockpile of woolies sims from the half price recharge offer?
Easier said than done… :-p
I had them but they expired in sept and I tried but defiantly didn't work.
defiantly didn't work
Swype struck again?
I have 3 of them, but has expire day of 01 Oct 2013.
Haven't tried to activate any of them.
Sounds like they will go in the bin.
Had no plans of using them anyway.
It's a shame as the 45 day expiry was good for my wife
Just started the activation of a SIM which expired on 01 Oct 2013, still seems to work, no objections from activation site.
So stopped the activation process. If anyone in Cairns wants them, send me a PM
Anyone in WA with unused unwanted SIMs?
I phoned customer service to order a replacement SIM, was told 5-8 working days.
I used a Optus Prepaid $2 nano sim as a replacement for my wife. Worked fine.
what's going on with all the telcos