Optus offers unlimited data roaming for Aussie travellers

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Optus offers unlimited data roaming for Aussie travellers - Telkomsel, telcommunications, Taiwan Mobile, SK Telecom, Singtel Optus, SingTel Mobile, optus, mobility, mobile solutions, Maxis, Globe Telecom, CTM, CSL, AIS, Airtel - ARN

Optus is offering Australian travellers two unlimited data roaming packs for use in selected Asia destinations.

Bridge DataRoam (BDR) is available in a $27 three-day and $40 five-day pack (consecutive days), offering unlimited mobile data allowance in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.

The packs are only available on certain Bridge Alliance networks and are allocated to a single participating network.

The alliance includes: Airtel, AIS, CSL, CTM, Globe Telecom, Maxis, SingTel Mobile, SingTel Optus, SK Telecom, Taiwan Mobile, and Telkomsel.

 

[oz_mark]

Bear in mind the sentence:

The packs are only available on certain Bridge Alliance networks and are allocated to a single participating network.

This means that if you use a pack in Singapore then go to Malaysia you will need a separate pack!

 

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Bear in mind the sentence:

This means that if you use a pack in Singapore then go to Malaysia you will need a separate pack!

As always, the devil is in the detail! :shock:

 

[moa999]

Yes but still $8/9 a day....
Local SIMs in Asia are much cheaper.

 

[Timtammi]

This could save me a packet on my BB roaming charges. If you are locked into a BB company plan you cant just switch sims so I think this will be very useful as my travel is almost all in Asia and I spend about $300 a week on roaming at the moment when travelling to these countries just for data.
Pity Japan and China arent included

 

[Mal]

And of course if your mobile happens to roam onto a non covered carrier... Ouch.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using AustFreqFly

 

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And of course if your mobile happens to roam onto a non covered carrier... Ouch.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using AustFreqFly

Yep! Best way to mitigate that would be to manually select the carrier in your phone settings, rather than leaving it on auto.

 

[Timtammi]

Definitely have to switch manually, in fact they tell you to do so in the FAQ.

 

[Paddy55]

Looks like a very tentative, very safe first step in the right direction by Optus... a max of a 5 day pack, particularly limited to one country, is appealing to a large proportion of potential customers I would have thought.

Interested in others' opinions

 

[Simo]

I am currently OS at the moment and am using Globe Telecommunications for BB e mail.

It cost me app $45 aussie for 30 days with also unlimited Social media as well in Philippines.

Yes it is a lot of money but i have received hundreds of e mails and also sent many as well.

Very handy that I don't have to carry laptop around all day and find wi fi spots.

I have fond it really handy.

 

[Timtammi]

Hi there Simo

Is this Philippines specific? How does it work?

 

[Simo]

Only works in Philippines.

I come over to HKG today and doesn't work at all here.

I don't even know my phone number all i did was put enough money on it to get so I could use the e mail.

Not the easiest to set up though.

Don't think it works with BES.

 

[straitman]

Looks like a very tentative, very safe first step in the right direction by Optus... a max of a 5 day pack, particularly limited to one country, is appealing to a large proportion of potential customers I would have thought.

Interested in others' opinions

I agree but also believe there is a lot of room for improvement.

I recently spent two weeks in India that cost 125Rp for messages and 98Rp for 1.5Gb of data. I still have data left but am unlikely to use it before its expiry.

 

[Mal]

Looks like a very tentative, very safe first step in the right direction by Optus... a max of a 5 day pack, particularly limited to one country, is appealing to a large proportion of potential customers I would have thought.

It's Optus *attempting* to head off a Federal Govt inquiry/legislation around overseas roaming costs. Plus they'll still find many suckers who don't set up their phone correctly.

Yes a good step in the right direction, but only a hedgehog sized step instead of an elephant sized step (to paraphrase their stupid advertising).

 

[Simo]

I just wonder what will happen when someone comes back with a bill in the tens of thousands and thought that it was unlimited and not read the fine print.

I work in the telecommunications area and see big data roaming bills every month.

I know of a govt department that had some staff members going overseas and said your phone is all ok to use overseas just as you do here, but was told phone calls expensive so just e mail everyone. over 100k bill for the month.

They use there phone as a modem as well.

 

[Timtammi]

I thought the data packs were unlimited? Can't find any fine print that says otherwise?

 

[Timtammi]

Just checked again and I see they apply the "fair go" policy. But have also just realised I can't use this as I don't have a consumer contract, we have an Optus SMB account. Looks like small business gets the bad deal again, why on earth would they limit this to consumer contracts only? Its not like the contracts on our phones are any cheaper!

 

[AdMEL]

Optus unlimited data roaming packs -- bargain price!

For those with an Optus mobile, Optus have recently (it appears a little over a month ago) introduced unlimited international data roaming packs at a bargain price - $10 for 1 day, $27 for 3 days, $40 for 5 days! They're available to 13 countries - mostly Asian, but including the US and UK! There is no limit to the number you can add together, but they can/will only provision two at a time - i.e., for the third, you will need to call again, once you are using the second. Call cost is either $0 or $0.50, so not a big deal.

I just used this on my iPhone in HKG and it worked pretty well, with one exception - I still received text messages saying I'd spent thousands of dollars on data (last one was ~$7,500 for ~250MB!) and also that I'd spent several hundred dollars in excess of my plan. Annoying. I figured they weren't correct, but just to be sure, I called them from HKG and spent 10 min sorting it out - basically was told to ignore the sms! Unfortunately, for a large telecom company with some great offers, they have rubbish IT systems!

Much easier than an overseas sim. I'm surprised no-one else has posted it!

See full details:

https://www.optus.com.au/shop/mobilephones/bridgedataroam?SID=bdrlink140512

 

[moa999]

Re: Optus unlimited data roaming packs -- bargain price!

I just spent six days in HK.
Popped down and bought a HK$88 one2free PowerSim. (with HK$88 credit)... activated a HK($78) weekly data pack.
and chewed through about 1gb for about A$10.

Admittedly I have a dual SIM handset which makes this a lot easier...

Also activated a dial rule to force O/s calls via the cheaper 1718 prefix, making calls even to Aussie mobiles about A$0.20/min.

 

[drewbles]

Re: Optus unlimited data roaming packs -- bargain price!

This is pretty pricey if you're there for a week. A Local SIM would be much cheaper, or of course, use a global roaming SIM if you need data and calling.

If you travel a lot and need your AU SIM, simply take a second handset that does tethering, or an unlocked hot spot.

They've offered these packs for some time (along with the Bridge Alliance setup). I guess as moa999 says, $10 for a GB is more than enough for most people (I only use 1GB a month on Telstra using LTE and I don't in any way restrict my usage; I don't tether much though either).