When you sign up to a postpaid mobile plan, the cost of the monthly repayments covers both the cost of the phone and the cost of the calls you make (atleast it includes an allowance of calls). At the end of the contract period, the monthly repayments don’t get adjusted for the fact that the phone has been repaid, they simply continue as is until you wake up to the fact that you are being ripped off.

Your options are to:

• Find a new plan – useful if you are happy with your phone. The plan options are BYO mobile plans, a prepaid mobile plan or maybe another contract plan.
• Upgrade your phone – if you are keen on the latest mobile phone, sign up to another plan and receive the latest in technology. New monthly payments will cover both the cost of the phone and an allowance for calls and mobile internet.

Bill, a friend of my fathers is retired and signed up to a mobile phone plan with Telstra a few years ago. He wanted a new phone and a contract was the easiest option for him at the time. The contract ended some time ago and over the last couple of months he has been asking himself “why hasn’t Telstra contacted me”. Last week he happened to be passing a Telstra store and popped in to ask.

The helpful assistant advised him that the onus was on him to come and ask. Telstra wasn’t planning on telling him to leave the plan any time soon. He asked if he could leave but was mindful that he wanted to keep his number.

Knowing that I run a website which compares prepaid mobile plans, my father motioned me to give him a hand. I simply explained to Bill that he had the option of moving to a prepaid mobile plan with a long expiry which would give him certain savings and the ability to keep his number. Given he was familiar with the Telstra store local to him, I advised that he invest $60 in a Telstra prepaid sim Long Expiry plan which should give him 365 days of credit. This should last him close to 6 months based on his spending pattern. $120 over one year using prepaid is a lot cheaper than $360 on his existing plan.

So Bill will be visiting the Telstra store at Chadstone tomorrow to transfer his phone to a Telstra Long Expiry prepaid mobile plan.

Helping a friend out today who is looking for an iPhone 4S for their partner. Whilst a contract plan would have made the iPhone 4S a lot more affordable (atleast initially) they didn’t want to be caught up in a 24 month contract. Also given they are on a working Visa here it might become a little complicated getting through all of the paper work.

By going outright on the phone, there are several advantages, the most important being that you can choose the plan you wish to go with and decide its terms. Be it prepaid mobile plan or a BYO mobile plan it is your choice. The phone is unlocked so you are free to swap the sim card whenever you want. The second advantage is that you can also sell it easier should you need to. There is no ongoing contract to get yourself out of (pay out), you simply remove the sim card and hand it over.

The downside is $$$. Yep you need the money in order to be able to afford the high upfront cost. Having a look at the pricing at the moment, you can expect to pay almost $700 for an unlocked iPhone 4S 16GB (15/5/2012). The cheapest I have found is at Kogan.com.au. They are also offering the 32GB iPhone 4S for $800 and the 64GB for $889.

You do have to be comfortable with buying with Kogan and really there is just as much risk with the Kogan service as there is with any other online retailer. The second cheapest place for an unlocked iPhone 4S is with smoothmobile.com.au. These guys have the 16GB version at $704, the 32GB at $822 and the 64GB for $922. I have purchased an outright phone from smoothmobiles and the service was great. I actually used the warranty on the phone and the service again was great, so I can recommend them.

The last alternative is eBay. Yep there are bargains there but you do need to be careful with who you buy from and what happens if the phone doesn’t work at some stage during the warranty period. Who do you return it to then?

It has been a while since I have prepared an article focusing on the best prepaid sim cards in Australia at the moment. You can always find the cheapest sim cards via our quick links page but below is a summary of the top sim cards and why.

When it comes to the cheapest sim card, the best way to compare them is by looking at the cost of a two minute call. This will encompass the call rate as well as the flagfall and give you the best picture of which is the cheapest sim.

Best 2 Minute Call Rate:

• gotalk Aussie Extra – 2 min call = 18c (Vodafone)
• Savvytel Savvy Lite – 2 min call = 20c (Optus)
• Dodo Pay As You Go – 2 min call = 22c (Optus)
• Amaysim Pay As You Go – 2 min call = 24c (Optus)
• JB Hifi Prepaid – 2 min call = 24c (Telstra)
• Telstra Simplicity – 2 min call = 30c (Telstra)
• Crazy Johns Flat Chat – 2 min call = 30c (Vodafone)

gotalk prepaid mobile sim card is the cheapest in the market at the moment and has been for some time now. The Aussie Extra plan actually won award in 2011 for the value it offers. 18c for a 2 minute call means that $10 credit will give you 55 calls (2 calls a day for close to a month). The only catch with gotalk is that it is on the Vodafone network. Vodafone’s network has been improving month on month, so if you have used Vodafone before and where happy with it then you will be fine.

Savvytel’s SavvyLite plan is about 12 months old and should also be a real contender. With the Optus network behind it, 20c for a 2 minute call is great value. $10 will give you 50 calls and if network coverage has been an issue before, then Optus is probably a better choice for her. Savvytel is a smaller provider than gotalk is but having used them before myself (and I still do), I am comfortable recommending them to you.

Dodo is 3rd on the list with 22c for a 2 minute call. Dodo is a big brand when it comes mobile and internet packages. The Pay As You Go offer is a new plan for Dodo and one also seriously worth considering. Dodo has been up and down when it comes to service. They have invested a lot in systems to solve these issues. Given this is a prepaid mobile offer, Dodo requires you to recharge online so you are unlikely to need to speak to anyone anyway. At 22c a minute you get 45 calls with your $10 credit.

The final plan I will cover is Amaysim’s offer. Amaysim recently reduced their call rate by 20% from 15c/min down to 12c/min. No flagfall means you get a 2 minute call for 24c. Your $10 will buy you 41 calls. Whilst this is not the cheapest, bare in mind that Amaysim offer unlimited social media with this prepaid sim plan,

Having studied prepaid mobile and prepaid internet plans for several years now, I have often wondered what the difference between GPRS, WAP, 2G, 3G and the latest craze in 4G is. I can bet you most of the everyday public would be feeling the same way.

Does it make any difference to your experience if all that you get given access to is GPRS? Why do many prepaid mobile broadband providers offer 3G?

These are all interesting questions and if you asked the everyday person they wouldn’t be able to explain to you what they have access to and whether they need something faster.

There certainly are differences and speed is the main feature in this difference. The difference is also very much to do with the generation of technology that your mobile phone or internet provider is giving you access to. The latest is always the best but most providers don’t have access to this and even if they do, most of their customers don’t have the hardware in order to be able to access this technology.

On that note, let’s start with 4G which is the latest. 4G is the latest and the fastest of the mobile internet experiences. When it was first launched in Australia the talk was that it would be faster than all other mobile internet experiences because it was designed for mobile data and the way it handled congestion would ensure a much faster experience compared to 3G.

In Australia, 4G is offered by Vivid Wireless and Telstra. Optus will soon also join the club. However for the everyday person with an iPhone or USB modem, accessing 4G is impossible unless you upgrade your hardware. This includes buying a compatible 4G handset or USB modem.

Technically, the definition of 4G is “the fourth generation of cell phone mobile communications standards”. This is a successor to 3G the third generation. Two standard are used within 4G the mobile WiMAX standard Long term evolution (LTE) standard.

3G is the norm at the moment all around the world. Mobile broadband via a USB modem is offered via this standard. In Australia it is offered by all carriers including Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.

Whilst the adoption of the 3G standard took a long time across the world and even Australia, the push by the hardware devices to offer 3G services and the demand for these services saw carriers begin to invest in the 3G network. These devices include the popular smart phone, tablets and as mentioned earlier wireless internet modems.

The challenge faced by the 3G network is congestion, because it carries both voice and data at the same time.

The final category is 2G. Defined as the second generation. GPRS and 2G are connected technologies, in fact GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) is essentially an upgrade of 2G. We have all heard of MMS, the sending of pictures from your phone to another person. GPRS is the technology which allowed this to be offered. In terms of internet access WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) was the first standard to allow access to the internet over your phone. Some mobile plan providers will only give you WAP internet access. This is fine if your phone is basic and you have no need for lots of browsing on the internet. In most cases these plan will also not offer you any data allowance. Rather they will just charge you based the time you spend on the internet.

So if you have a smart phone or plan to use the internet wirelessly when you are on the road, then 3G is what you should be asking for. Over the next 12 – 18 months, the norm will gradually become 4G.

The basis for this article first appeared on a US publication which demanded that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigate mobile wireless companies capping data usage on wireless devices. Specifically, the group said wireless devices such as the new iPad are designed for the consumption of streaming video, which uses data at a high rate.

“Millions of consumers and at least two major publications have now discovered that the new iPads which went on sale come with a hidden cost – the caps on data usage which wireless carriers put on consumers.” said Public Knowledge President and CEO Gigi B. Sohn. “It’s a ridiculous situation that the carriers sell millions of these devices specifically designed to view video on one hand, while they restrict the usage of their networks for video on the other.”

With consumers demanding more video-on-demand, it won’t be a surprise if in a few months many who own these new devices begin to suffer from bill shock due to over spending when it comes to data usage with their new iPad or iPhone.

“If the Commission is truly interested in consumer protection, it will ask the crucial questions and come up with some answers before consumers start getting hit with ever-increasing bills just for using the devices they bought in good faith.”

This issue is just as critical in Australia where 4G devices are just starting to hit the market. We already have the Samsumg tablet offering 4G speeds and now we have a range of HTC phones with 4G capability.

The next generation of sim cards are likely to be smaller than our finger nail. Labelled the Nano Sim, the next generation of sim cards are currently being designed and agreed upon by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

The two parties vying for the design bragging rights are non other than Nokia and Apple.

Apple’s design (Micro-SIM) currently supports a tray as with it’s current products like the iPhone and iPad.

Nokia however, has voiced the opinion that this increases the demands of the Nano SIM and it’s casing requirements.

Voting on the final decision isn’t due till the end of May however there has been some controversy with Apple using its various European subsidiaries to increase its voting power. Nokia are stating that they will not license and Apple designed Nano Sims.

Motorola and Blackberry has thrown their support behind Nokia while Apple has the support of some of the larger European telecommunication companies.

Personally, what I would like to see in the next generation of sim cards is an independent sim card which isn’t tied to any particular carrier or mobile plan provider. You should simply be able to quote its unique ID when switching plans and a common register used by all companies will assist you to make the switch. What this will mean is that you no longer need a new sim card each time you switch.

Vodafone really needs to lift its game with the Sim Only Caps it has out in the market at the moment. Seriously there is more value in going Prepaid. Firstly at $55 you only receive 1GB of data where as plans from Exetel and Spin give you 2 and even 3GB of data plus free social internet. Even when you look at the call credits available in these plans they are so far behind most plans available out there. The only consolation is that at the $35 and the $55 Caps you have access to unlimited calls to Vodafone phones.

Bare in mind that this feature (free and unlimited calls to Vodafone) is also available via the following prepaid mobile plans: Txt & Data Recharge (at all recharge levels).

Probably the only other good thing about these plans is that the call rate at 45c per 30 seconds when many of the plans are at 49c. 5c is really not going to make a major change when you are being charged in the high 40s.

Hold on wait, the Infinite Plans make up for all of this. Four plans are available, the $45, $65, $85 and the $100. All of them offer you unlimited calls and text to anyone and anywhere. They also have loads of data starting with 500MB on the $45 plan and increasing to 4GB on the $100 plan. All plans also come with unlimited social network access, covering Facebook, Twitter, eBay, LinkedIn and a few more.

Thank goodness that the Infinite plans are available.

Exetel has undergone several transformations of its mobile phone plans. This includes moving between carriers Vodafone and Optus. The latest range of plans listed above include the Caps 10 to Cap 99. I took interest in these plans as I am personally looking to replace a contract plan that I currently have with Optus and considering prepaid or sim only options. I was particularly impressed with the Cap 35 which offers $440 in call credit + $440 in call credit to other Exetel customers, 1GB of data and free social media access.

Compare this to the Optus Turbo Cap Plus which for $30 gives you $300 in calls, unlimited SMS, 500MB data and free social internet. The Exetel offers is much better with double the data and a lot more in calls although free SMS would suit some people.

The call rates on these plans are high. $440 in call credit would give you 186, 2 minute calls. The Optus Turbo Cap would offer you only 138 calls (remember you are only paying $30 per month prepaid in this case).

At the top end of the Exetel Cap range you have the Cap 75 and the Cap 99 plans. Each of these Caps come with 2000 minutes in calls, over $100 in international calls plus much more data than what you need. Ideal for a business user.

The Cap plans are run through the Optus network.

Exetel also have some cheap plans in the XO and the YO (I wish they could come up with other names). These plans have call rates at 15c and 12c respectively, with a low flagfall of 15c. Call credits are equal to the monthly charges of $15 and $30.

The Mobile A to the Mobile YO plans are run through the Vodafone network.

Overall I am impressed with Exetel’s plans and think they should receive some serious consideration by users of this site. Particularly if you have a smart phone. You may however also like to compare them to what Live Connected has to offer (also use the Optus network). Live Connected seems to have more value (calls and data) but Exetel does offer phone support which you should probably weigh in when comparing plans.

Spin Internet launched their no contract mobile plans about the same time as iiNet. Both organisations use the Optus network to support their offers.

Spin launched with four offers (and recently added two new plans), starting with the Pay As You Use plan which comes with no credit but very low call rates at just 9.5c per 30 seconds. You can then move up to the $14 Cap, increasing to the $24 Cap, $34 Cap, $54 Cap and the Capless plan at $74 which offers unlimited calls and text.

These Cap plans are actually quite good and the call value is quite strong. At the mid level of $34, 1GB and free social media is equal to that offered say by Exetel, but the call credits are double Exetel’s. In fact Exetel gives you $440 to anyone and another $440 to Exetel. Whereas Spin gives you $800 to anyone.

They have also expanded the portfolio more recently with the Capless plan which at $79 is a steal compared to Virgin’s Topless which costs $99. You also get 5GB of data. At the other end, the Pay As You Use plan is exactly that. No credit, you only pay for what you have spent. Don’t make any calls in the month, pay nothing. With a call rate of 9.5c per 30 seconds, this is pretty competitive. Doesn’t quite match the TPG Pay As You Go plan when it comes to data but the call rate is equal (although TPG’s is charged per sec).

Another great find. Spin plans need to be promoted more so that they get noticed. Will certainly be adding Spins Sim Only plans to our Quick Search guide.

We want your Vote!. Tell us which Prepaid Mobile Provider is the Best and help us decide who gets Gold, Silver and Bronze. Voting closes at the end of May so vote now and get your friends using prepaid to vote.