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Telstra cuts data-roaming costs

From 14 October, Telstra will add global-roaming data packs and drop the per 1MB price of its roaming charges.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia
Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.
Nic Healey

When Optus and Vodafone changed their charging structures for global data roaming, we wondered whether Telstra would be far behind.

(Credit: Telstra)

It turns out that the carrier wasn't too late to the party, today announcing a series of changes that will come into effect on 14 October.

Telstra has four new Casual Traveler Data Packs available for post-paid customers. These are:

  • AU$29 for 100MB to use over 30 days

  • AU$85 for 300MB to use over 30 days

  • AU$160 for 600MB to use over 30 days

  • AU$350 for 1.5GB to use over 30 days.

Current roaming packs for post-paid accounts on Telstra range from AU$29 for 20MB up to AU$1800 for 2GB.

Additionally, the per 1MB charge for casual usage is now AU$3, down from AU$15.

The data can be used in 50 countries around the world for the 30-day time period, allowing people travelling to multiple countries to benefit from the new packs.

When queried on the Telstra blog about prepaid customers, one of the moderators said the "same changes will be occurring for prepaid on 24 October".

Telstra has said it will provide alert texts to customers for each 20MB used.

Optus' recent changes lowered its per 1MB rate to either AU$0.50 or AU$1, depending on which country you're roaming in, while Vodafone offers an AU$5 charge to be able to use your normal plan's data limit, but only in a small number of countries.