Backup Mobile Phone: Worth it?

ThePensioner on 28/08/2015 - 17:52
Last edited 28/08/2015 - 19:13 by 2 other users

Hello everyone, there are 2 people in my house right now: myself and my older sister. We each have our own mobile phone and we each have one mobile number and we're both on Optus Pre-Paid. My older sister had the idea earlier today that we should buy another mobile phone and give it its own mobile number and keep it in the house so that we have a backup. However, this would also mean we would need to maintain another Optus Pre-Paid number.

Is there any benefit of doing this? I want to hear from the younger folk who know much more about this than us oldies.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

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  ozhunter on 28/08/2015 - 18:03

  Huh? and wth happened with that first line?

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    iridiumstem on 28/08/2015 - 18:13

    Hello everyone, there are 2 people in my house right now: myself and my older sister. We each have our own mobile phone and we each have one mobile number and we're both on Optus Pre-Paid. My older sister had the idea earlier today that we should buy another mobile phone and give it its own mobile number and keep it in the house so that we have a backup. However, this would also mean we would need to maintain another Optus Pre-Paid number.

    Is there any benefit of doing this? I want to hear from the younger folk who know much more about this than us oldies.

    Any feedback would be much appreciated.

    Just CTRL C, V got me that.

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  iridiumstem on 28/08/2015 - 18:15

  While I don't think it's bad to have a spare phone, I don't think it's necessary to keep have the number on it.
  I always bought outright, so I am not sure whether the telcos give you a phone when you sent your phone to them for repair purposes.

  If your phone breaks, you can just take the sim card out and use it on the spare phone. If you lose the phone, you probably can ask for or buy a new SIM from Optus or something like that (at least I think that'd work, not too sure though).

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  ozhunter on 28/08/2015 - 18:16

  Did she say why she wants a backup phone?

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  Steptoe on 28/08/2015 - 18:51

  +1

  Has she been watching Doomsday Preppers?

  $5 Aldi Sim will get you Telstra Network for 1 year.

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  mskeggs on 28/08/2015 - 19:11

  We had a spare 2g phone for international visitors or on the rare occasion my young kids needed to take one on an outing, and as a back up in case of breakage/loss.
  When my eldest went to High School we gave her the sim and a cheap smartphone, and haven't been bothered replacing it, and that was 3 years ago.
  So in our case, it isn't really worth it.

  You an buy a cheap phone any day of the week from one of the supermarkets, so I suggest leaving it until you need it, which might never happen.

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  daver on 28/08/2015 - 19:39

  With two of you in the household either of you could serve as a backup line for each opposite. You can also have a number of soft-phone/dialers, like Skype MyNetFone Hangouts programs e.g. for identity separation. Skype credit keeps for indefinitely.

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  altomic on 28/08/2015 - 19:49

  like steptoe said "$5 Aldi Sim will get you Telstra Network for 1 year."

  and like mskegss said an old nokia brick with huge battery life so it doesn't need charging

  like this Nokia 1100 for AU $ 17.21 delivered from aliexpress.

  $22 for a year of emergency 2nd safety phone.

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  scotty on 28/08/2015 - 23:08

  Cheap phone — some OzBargainers might have a drawer full of Samsung E3309T or other cheap feature phones that they bought just for the 3 months Netflix credit. Ask around :) Those are Optus locked so should be able to use prepaid SIM.

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  [Deactivated] on 28/08/2015 - 23:40

  i have a backup mobile although it does not have a sim, i jsut transfer my current one to that, it has the same contacts and email set up as well.

  i have it due to the nature of my work i have a high chance of it failing on me due to damage.

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  Cheeper on 29/08/2015 - 01:10

  No need to do this.
  If you do lose your phone just duck into coles/woollies and pick up a cheapie for say $10 and a cheap sim card that you can activate pretty much immediately.
  Worry about it when it happens, you may never lose it.

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  ThePensioner on 30/08/2015 - 13:36

  Thanks so much for your replies!

  The one issue that's holding us back from buying an Optus backup phone is that we'd have to keep topping up the $30 Optus prepaid voucher every 6 months.

  Is there any way around this?

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  lost69 on 30/08/2015 - 16:38

  2G is being shutoff by both Optus and Telstra within 2yrs. If its GSM/2G you'll need to go Voda (and you can bet they will switch it off too sooner rather than later). Myself I have a $10 Tesltra 3G mobile on Telstra longlife - $30 every 6 months. I'd throw it out the window but its an expectation in 2015 that you have a phone instead of sending a pigeon or a papyrus scroll. And yes I can get it cheaper but Telstra's network is unparalleled.

  EDIT: Optus new plan is $10 for 6 months for the cheapest one.