Telstra’s New $69 Unlimited Data Plan Isn’t Exactly Unlimited

Telstra has just announced its very first smart phone plan with “unlimited” data… but it has a speed cap.

And you have to bring your own phone.

Called ‘Endless Data BYO Plan’, it is priced at $69 per month, with a minimum cost of $828 over 12 months. The plan comes with ‘unlimited data’, but only the first 40GB per month will be uncapped. If you go over the limit the speed will drop to 1.5Mbps.

“We know how important it is to our customers that they can access the fastest speeds available to them on our network. That’s why our unlimited plan comes with 40GB of data to enjoy at uncapped speeds, unlimited sports action, and then data capped at 1.5Mbps to get customers through the month if they need it,” says Vicki Brady, Group Executive of Telstra Consumer and Small Business.

This sounds a lot like Optus’ ‘Unleashed’ plans from earlier this year that also offered ‘unlimited’ data with a 1.5Mbps cap. It didn’t go unnoticed by media outlets and when the telco was questioned by the Australian Financial Review, all marketing material relating to the offer was removed from the Optus website.

And while this certainly isn’t the same situation that Optus was in back in 2012 when it was fined $3.6 million for offering “unlimited” download plans that had undisclosed limitations – it still doesn’t entirely sit right.

In fact, it begs the question on whether ‘unlimited’ is an appropriate term to be attaching to plans that do, in fact, have limitations.

We have reached out to Telstra for comment and will update this story if we receive a response.