Christmas brings major price cuts from telcos on mobile broadband

The chance for some of the main telcos to make big reductions on their mobile broadband charges and the pricing on their iPhones have been taken in the run up to Christmas.

Announcements from Vodafone to offer ‘three months free access’ when signing up for a 24 month contract on its 5GB Mobile Broadband plan at $39.95 per month. The offer will come into effect on the fifth, sixth and seventh month of the 24 month contract and will be available for signup until 28th February 2009 says Vodafone.

Based on the standard cost of the contract totalling $958.80 it will mean that customers will save 10 percent with a saving of $119.85. The $69 Dell netbook plan and the $79 mobile caps are also to be included in this three month free access offer.

Another offer that is will save customers slightly more is the 6GB Mobile broadband plan from 3, which is offering a 24 month contract with the first six months charged at $19.50 per month and offers an extra 1GB per month and a total charge of $819 for the year meaning it is slightly better value for money than the Vodafone plan.

Something, however, that Vodafone has not offered but 3 has is an extension of this offer to other plans in its range, so the 3GB per month is included in the offer at $14.50 and for $24.50 per month you can increase your data allowance to 7GB per month.

The only drawback to the offer from 3 is that it only applies for use on 3’s own network so for those who use roaming service will be charged $1.65 per MB if they move outside of the 3 network.

For Optus and Telstra there have been no pre-Christmas changes made to their mobile broadband offers but a few minor changes have been made on the iPhone plans provided by Optus. Being the only provider to currently offer a 12 month contract on iPhones, Optus has made just a few small changes across its range of plans.

An increase of a few dollars has been made on all of its contracts where the phone isn’t free and an iPhone Timeless plan has also been added to its plan range. The iPhone Timeless plans come with either 12 or 24 month contracts and start at $113.95 per month and include 1.5GB data downloading, unlimited calling and national SMSs.