Well now, here is a potential trap for young players. Like many, as a way of cutting costs on a daily basis we changed from a top tier telco (Telstra) to a second tier one (Belong, owned by Telstra as I understand it).
The logic was simple; we didn’t need massive phone call levels or data usage, so at half the price for the same coverage, it was a no-brainer.
Except that turns out to be not quite true.
Eastern States folks in particular may not know this, but Christmas Island, 340 Km south of Indonesia in the Indian Ocean is an Australian Territory, and to all intents and purposes, seen as a part of Western Australia.
In a previous life in my Tandy days, a client of mine actually set up a casino on Christmas Island (which I think went bust which is no mean feat unless your surname is Trump), and later of course, it was a notorious immigration holding area.
These days, it is a holiday spot, a place to get away from it all with no huge resorts, theme parks or whatever. It does have 4G and Wi-fi but only using Telstra.
So Belong should work there, yes? Ummm no.
We are taking a short break there later this week to recuperate from the last nasty few weeks following an overseas death in the family, but still need communication with the outside world of course, so it is lucky I checked.
And Belong cannot even forward from an existing number to a temporary Telstra SIM.
The only course of action was to get a pair of Telstra 1 month SIMS (on special, for $13 each down from $39) and on the Belong message bank for each existing number, advise that for the period, if urgent to dial this new number – the Telstra one.
So, 2 weeks ago I could call Jacqui if I wanted to, while she was on a Cathay Pacific jet over Germany at 30,000 feet, but on a part of Australia that is actually civilised and not just inhabited by emus, wombats, kangaroos, rabbits and crocodiles, I can’t use a standard telco service without a great deal of muckin’ about.
Pathetic really.
The moral of the story really is that the cut price telcos are not always all they are cracked up to be, so check carefully before switching.
(As an aside, without the Telstra connection, potentially I couldn’t’ even fly a drone as I wouldn’t be able to login to my DJI account unless I was in the accommodation where there is Wi-fi).
2 Comments
SO true. We changed for the same reason. Went with ALDI and, whilst there’s been no problems at al, stateside, what I didn’t realise was that, if one were to travel overseas (which we do for lengthy periods through the year), a one-minute connection will cost $1AU, to either make or receive. And the same goes for data – so Whatsapp etc are out also. Unless, like you say, you piggyback onto a wifi network somewhere.
Hahaha. Buyer, beware!
The devil is in the detail. MVNOs like Belong, Aldi, TOG, etc may operate on one of the three networks but they only have access to the wholesale network and not the full service. I was looking at MVNOs the other day and noted that the wholesale and retail coverage offered by Telstra is definitely different – particularly when it comes to 5G coverage.