Standardista Kyd

Mobile data in Australia is exuberantly expensive, but with the advent of “mobile broadband” services the price is coming down somewhat. However if you’re looking to get mobile Internet on your existing handset you may be out of luck; the Australian telecos seem to have the unanimous opinion that Internet on a phone handset is a luxury, and will happily direct you to bundled plans running into the hundreds of dollars per month.

For someone who uses their handset primarily for Internet purposes, signing up for a fifty dollar phone contract just to get Internet on top of that is obscene. Three seem to have the most reasonable plans in this regard, allowing you to put “x-series” (data) packs on top of your monthly plan, but there’s still a vast discrepancy between data on an USB dongle and data on a handset.

Using a Mobile Broadband SIM in a Normal Phone

It’s a little known fact that you can swap the SIM card in your USB dongle with that of your phone.

This means you can use your “mobile broadband” data with your phone handset with very little difficulty. There are a few drawbacks to this approach: namely, the carriers don’t support it and will go out of their way to tell you it’s not possible. If you’re willing to defy your carrier and do it anyway, there’s a few things to know:

• You will need to go to the mobile carrier’s stall in a shopping centre to get a new SIM card. While newsagents and the like will sell you prepaid sim cards, they will most likely not have data services.
• Not all providers will sell you a mobile broadband SIM without the hardware to go with it. Vodafone are notorious for this practise, and will tell you that you can’t buy a SIM card unless you buy the hardware or go on a lengthy contract. It may be possible to work around their limitation, but the sales person I dealt with was frustrating enough that I walked out of the store.
• Three will happily sell you a SIM card if you tell them you have a compatible device.
• Your mobile broadband SIM comes with a new phone number, usually printed on the front of the package. I have not been able to get any provider to port an old number across to a data service, although your mileage may vary.
• Pre-paid data services generally do not allow outbound phone calls. Inbound calls work fine, but if you need to call out from a prepaid service, you will need to use a VoIP solution which can be unreliable over flaky 3G networks.

I’ve been led to believe that some post-paid broadband services allow outbound calls, but I have not tested this yet.

Compatibility Chart

The following chart is designed to give you an overview of the level of service you can expect from each provider. I’ve only had experience with Three, as I wasn’t prepared to deal with Vodafone, but if you’ve had any luck with alternative providers, please leave your details and I’ll fill out this table over time.