The new plans will come into effect on March 1, and present customers will be transferred automatically with no change to their contract terms, while new customers will sign a 12 month contract.
The changes in the plans involve either higher data caps or lower costs, depending on the plan. The Lite 550MB plan will be increased to a 1GB data cap for the same price, while the Standard 3GB and Pro 6GB plans will be combined to a 12GB throttled service for AU$69.95. The Ultimate 15GB plan was increased to 20GB, and the price dropped to AU$109.95.
A new cable broadband plan was introduced, a 'Starter' plan with 300MB for AU$49.95.
"We expect the Starter plan to be very popular with people wishing to switch from dial up to broadband," said Martin Dalgleish, managing director, Optus Consumer and Multimedia. "For a few dollars more than dial up, customers can get 300MB which is double the average monthly downloads used by our dial up customer base."
Optus dial-up customers also received a AU$3.50 reduction on three of the four plans.
Optus currently has more than 650,000 Internet customers.
I would prefer that we could make a selection, in which case I would choose the lower price, as I don't use the 550mb now, let alone the 1 GB you are offering.