Once they get over the thorny question of when to let kids have a mobile device, parents have to negotiate a new world of telco products to which they\u2019ve never paid much attention.<\/p>\n
Does your child need a monthly post-paid plan or a pay-as-you-go pre-paid SIM? Or is a family plan a better option, with multiple SIM cards attached to the same account?<\/p>\n
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Are you spending too much on your monthly mobile bill?<\/span>Credit:<\/span>Glenn Hunt<\/cite><\/p>\n With Telstra recently updating its plans to allow family bundles, now is a good time to look at the latest options.<\/p>\n The national telco recently re-launched its mobile and data plans to allow up to five bundle plans to be added to an account, with data shared across them.<\/p>\n However, there are a few catches: the bundles are only available if a parent has one of Telstra\u2019s larger mobile plans, which start at $68 a month. The plans themselves are also not cheap, giving kids 15 gigabytes (GB) of data for $47 a month.<\/p>\n Given Telstra has a basic plan that gives you 40GB for $58 a month, that doesn\u2019t seem like great value. (Speeds on the basic plan are capped at 250Mbps, but that\u2019s still pretty fast.)<\/p>\n When compared to competing family plans, Optus offers about 40 per cent more data for about 20 per cent less money, based on a family of four.<\/p>\n Aldi Mobile also has cheap family plans that go through the Telstra network, which may suit families that don\u2019t use much data, while low-cost telco Yomojo has the smallest and most flexible options, with as little as 28GB of data across 4 SIMs.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a comparison of the minimum monthly cost and data inclusions for a family of four:<\/p>\n The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says the average mobile customer uses about 15GB of data a month, but the Telstra and Optus plans include a minimum of 34GB and 80GB per person, respectively.<\/p>\n It might seem like teens spend a lot of time on their phones, but Telsyte\u2019s Australian Mobile Services Market Study 2022 found adults aged 18-44 use around 30 per cent more data than those aged 16-17. Telsyte estimates under-16s would use less again, as parents keep a closer eye on their spending.<\/p>\n The advantages of family plans can include data sharing, receiving a single statement, customised data caps for each SIM and parental controls. However, they\u2019re not necessarily the cheapest option.<\/p>\n Four bargain-basement SIM cards with providers such as amaysim, circles.life or Moose Mobile will cost you as little as $36 a month for about 6GB of data each (24GB in total).<\/p>\n If you wanted the entire 225GB of data across four SIMs that is available in the Telstra family plan listed above, you could get that for as little as $120 a month across four accounts.<\/p>\n And the cheapest option \u2013 as with many other products \u2013 is to bulk-buy. Long expiry plans allow you to buy data that lasts for six or 12 months at a heavily discounted rate.<\/p>\n By bulk-buying, you can get the equivalent of about 5GB a month for less than $10 for small data users with the likes of amaysim, Catch Connect or Coles Mobile.<\/p>\n For the medium data users, bulk-buying gets you around 20GB of data for $25 a month, with Lebara, Boost or Kogan. Telstra also offers one of those plans.<\/p>\n So, families need to decide how much extra they are prepared to pay for the convenience of a single account or access to the Telstra network \u2013 which is the fastest according to speed testing website Ookla \u2013 but only marginally ahead of Optus.<\/p>\n