BigPond expands and cheapens its mobile wireless plans

03.04.2006
BigPond has slashed its monthly mobile wireless plans by A$20 and added two new plans that are charged on an hourly basis.

BigPond spokesperson Craig Middleton said the launch on Wednesday of the new plans was not planned to coincide with Unwired's roll-out in Melbourne on the same day. "The timing is pure coincidence -- we'd not heard of their launch plans until the weekend and our plans have been in place for months. We are not the slightest concerned about the Unwired launch, because our coverage in Melbourne is already much greater than they are proposing to unveil," he said.

Although the new offers from BigPond are an attempt to compete with other wireless providers on price, the telco insists that price is not the only factor in competition.

"While price is important, coverage is vital, and BigPond wireless broadband mobile cards offer Australia's greatest wireless broadband coverage because we have wireless broadband speeds available in all capital cities and a growing number of major regional centres, plus 'twice-dial-up' speeds for 98 percent of the population," group managing director Justin Milne said in a media release.

All the monthly plans have dropped by $20, so that the 256/64 Kbps with 200MB download allowance plan is now $49.95. The same speed offer with 1GB allowance is now $79.95. The 512/64 Kbps plan with 400MB allowance is now $79.95 and the same speed with 1GB allowance is $109.9 5.The hourly cards are available in ten hours for $29.95, or 20 hours for $49.95, both at 512/64Kb/sec speeds and no download limit.

Customers on the hourly cards will be charged at 80 cents per five minutes of excess usage and customers on the monthly plans are charged at 30 cents per extra MB.