tcbutler.co.uk

One thing many people don’t realise before moving to Australia is just how hard it is to get hold of certain basic things – bank accounts, mortgages are some of the more obvious ones, but mobile phones are among the surprises waiting for any ex-pat with an expiry date on their visa.

So, what to do? We managed to get pay as you go mobiles without even having addresses, but as soon as you want the better value offered by a monthly contract (especially for mobile internet junkies like myself) the shop assistants start throwing the rulebook at you. Apparently, the standard credit checks for all the major networks (Three, Optus, Vodafone, Telstra) require a visa with an expiry date far in excess of the end of the contract, and for those on a 12 month working holiday visa, that counts out most options.

Except… TPG. TPG, for the uninitiated, provide cheap broadband and telephony for the more courageous consumer – their customer service is limited, but their product hugely better value than all their competition. And… They offer 1 month rolling contracts! Their ingenious approach sees them take 20 dollars’ at the time of sign up, which covers any time you incur charges outside your basic plan.

For us, it is perfect, and I was surprised firstly by the speed of delivery (2 days from online order to receipt) then by the quality and speed of my 2gb mobile internet connection. They repackage ‘Yes’ Optus airline, so you get the same coverage and speed for less money and less commitment. Genius! Confusingly the SIM card is branded ‘SOUL’ but it turns out that TPG own SOUL.

As a sideline, 2gb is far too much for a mobile deal – my usage counter tells me that with push email running, plus downloads and extensive web browsing I’m scraping 10 megabytes per day… Or 0.3 gb per month. Oops!

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