The new plan offers 400MB of usage per month at speeds of 512Kbps on an AU$39.95 per month plan for customers "who choose Telstra for all their access, local, long distance and international phone calls"â€"akin to the similarly priced Optus bundle released the beginning of July this year.
Optus' DSL Starter Plus plan also offers 400MB of data with 512Kbps speeds for customers claiming Optus "yes" rewards by combining broadband service with local and long distance services.
The Optus plan also offers up to 100 free local calls every month, a reduced installation fee and a reduced monthly fee, according to the company's Web site.
BigPond managing director, Justin Milne, said Telstra's new plan for people looking for "moderate usage at an attractive price".
-This plan provides twice the speed and monthly usage [allowances] of our AU$29.95 entry-level 256/64 kbps plan and for customers who have their full home phone service with Telstra this is only AU$10 more a month," he said.
Milne adds that "T-Time rewards", such as free local calls will also be on offer with the BigPond plan.
The Telstra plan has a couple of VERY important differences to the Optus plan... They include upstream data in the usage allowance, and charge for data exceeding that monthly usage. Unless you enjoy handing over your hard-earned dollars to Telstra, I would suggest considering the numerous other service providers which will not result in bill shock, which Telstra is notorious for. Telstra just don't seem to understand the concept of competition when it comes to broadband pricing, and rely on their virtual monopoly and consumer ignorance to rake in the money.