Yes! Optus has no time for you

Are you someone who never shuts up, but still has friends somehow? You might be in the market for unlimited calls and messages.

While other carriers, like 3 Mobile, offer unlimited calls to other customers on their network, Optus is spruiking a new contract plan offering "unlimited" calls to all national landlines and GSM mobiles in Australia. On top of calls there is also "unlimited" text messages to Australian mobiles.

These new plans are at the more expensive end of the spectrum — plans start from the advertised price of AU$99 when taken with an AU$14.95 per month browsing pack. This, of course, doesn't equal AU$99, but AU$113.95, and includes 200MB of mobile data. Confusingly, if you don't want to pay extra for the browsing pack, the same deal — with calls and messages only — is available for AU$119 per month — AU$5 more than with the data tacked on. That's called up-selling, folks.

Compared to existing Optus plans, the new Timeless plans are good value if you use your mobile phone all the time. Currently an AU$89 capped mobile plan with Optus buys you AU$600 worth of calls and messages each month, so you will really need to glue your face to your handset to make the most of the "unlimited" calls and justify the extra expense.

According to the information we've received from Optus, the new plans are only available until 14 October, 2008. There's also a bunch of terms and conditions that need to be read regarding fair use of so-called "unlimited" calls, available on the Optus website.