Mobile Phone Plans in Australia
Australia has been one of the largest markets in mobile phones in the world with a penetration of over 90 percent. The mobile phones far outnumber the fixed lines and with increasing competition in this segment, companies have brought out a number of plans and packages allowing consumers to compare them and select a plan that is best suited to them. This market is predominantly dominated by prepaid users with their numbers being almost half the total number of mobile phone users in the country.
With a high level of competition in the market, companies are offering various new plans and schemes claiming to provide best and cheap deals and more number of features to attract new customers. Because of such competing plans and packages, users keep on moving from one service provider to the next all the time and the market is never in a stable state.
Today customers are seeking various new features in the entire bundled package. They want multimedia services, such as 3D games, picture and video messaging, polyphonic ringtones, online chat, online games in addition to various data services, emails, internet. The concept of charging by minutes has given way to charging by seconds and more recently to capped plans with a number of bundled benefits if you stay within your monthly cap. 3G has completely revolutionized the mobile phone market allowing simultaneous use of speech and data with higher data rates for both downlink and uplink, and already there is a talk of upgrading to 4G. With advanced sets being launched in the market everyday, with advanced features, suh as phone with an iPod, a video camera and GPS maps, consumers today in comparison to a decade back, have various plan options, which was unthinkable in those days.