This was posted 5 years 7 months 1 day ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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Optus Data Sim. $80 / 100GB + 100GB Bonus Data. Either 12 Month or Month to Month*

1180

Hi everyone.

I checked to see if this deal has been previously posted. If its a dupe, please delete.

Before you consider the existing Optus / Vivid Wireless home wireless broadband, have a quick look at this Optus Data Sim offer.

The obvious difference is that your not capped at 12/1 Mpbs download/Upload. You will get the full Optus experience for around an extra $10 per month.

The Offer….

  • Double Data. 200 gig in total.
  • $80 per month. You can get a $10 discount if bundled with an eligible mobile product.
  • Data can be pooled, unlike the new plans from Telstra.
  • Optus Sport is free, if you choose the 12 month plan.
  • Nat Geo is free, if you choose the 12 month plan.
  • Usual Music streaming services. Google Play, iHeartRAIO and Spotify.
  • Mobile TV streaming is also free on the 12 month plan.

  • This is a data only SIM. No calls are included.

Seems like a pretty good deal for those renting or looking at Home Wireless Broadband options without be speed limited.

Enjoy….

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  • +17

    https://www.optus.com.au/shop/tablet/devices/samsung-galaxy-… can get a galaxy tab S4 (or various others) with it over 24mo

    • +2

      24mo is the killer here but I guess the tab is effectively free..

      • I can't find how much they are valuing the tab. Need it to justify the 24 months plan

        • +1

          Looks like it's worth about $979 - it will be released 24th August. Choose the 256GB if you go for it as same price as 64GB if you pre-order ($80 plan, $0 tablet)

          I would probably but it if I wasn't married :P

        • +1

          @spillmill: Sign up for it and maybe you won’t have to worry about being married anymore.

  • +2

    Not really a bargain considering you can get a new phone, have unlimited calls/SMS, roaming data etc for not too much more

    • +3

      Unless you don't want/need a phone or just want data or month to month, which is exactly what is on offer here.

      • +3

        you can always sell it and bring the monthly cost down

      • You know you can sell the phone, right?

        $1600 phone + 200gb data + calls/sms for $84 a month
        or
        200gb data for $80 a month

        • +1

          What phone can you sell for $1600 on a $84 plan? I can’t find one, on the website.

        • Are you referring to the HN regional offer? Or is there a way for not regional folks to get that offer as well 😏

        • What $84 plan is this?

        • @NeBlackCat: Harvey Norman 20% off a $105 p.m. plan. That “$1,600” phone is more like $1k to $1,100 if you could sell it.

        • +1

          @quarrymaster: My point exactly. Got a neg as well for pointing out FUD.

        • @quarrymaster:
          Got a link for that mate? Sounds interesting.

        • Can I ask how you go about getting the phone with this deal? I've contacted their live chat and the best deal they could do is $165 for the phone plus 200gb offer.

  • Can students get further discount?

  • How do I connect this to a home network?

    Is there any way to limit downloads by device? Would an ubiquiti unifi have such a feature?

    • I know the Edgerouter X does support traffic shaping/limiting policy per device

    • +6

      I've got the Optus ac800s modem docked in with the Telstra aircard smart cradle (latest ac800s firmware update adds support for the smart cradle). Smart cradle adds boosted wifi 2.4ghz and 5ghz signals as well as 4x gigabit Ethernet ports for use in home. It also adds the usual level of software control you can expect from a Netgear router/modem.

      I've been using this for a while with the old $70 for 200gb plan and have been getting 250mbps in off-peak and 120mbps during peak. It's a good alternative for those like me who are renting in a place that does not have nbn yet, exchange is full so no ADSL2+, two story houses at the end of the street blocking my ability to get nuskope and uniti wireless. Ping is not brilliant at 33ms, but it's still been quite good for gaming.

      • How much data do you burn through?

        • +1

          We stream netflix daily at 1080p on multiple devices simultaneously and we play a lot of online games, usually we dont go over 180gb. We are also bundled with 2x $40/30gb per month mobile plans so the data pool is nice.

        • @DangerNoodle:
          My main internet use is one stream of Netflix HD in the evening, and I use on average 230gb (NBN).

          Do you know if you're getting at least partially unmetered Netflix? Do you know for sure it's 1080p?

          This deal says that Netflix is unmetered but SD and 1.5mbps only. I'm wondering if that also applies to you.

      • Where to sign $70 200g

        • It was an old plan. you can get the same deal now though if you bundle. the price of this plan drops to $70 per month for 200gb if you bundle with an existing postpaid mobile account if you commit to the 12 month plan. If youre willing to commit to 24 month plan and sign up before the 23rd, you get a 256gb samsung galaxy tab s4 for free as well, rrp is $960 for the tablet so you can sell it.

      • This is a pretty good setup, been stuck with the vivid wireless for 12mbps download… only good thing about vivid is it’s unlimited data, but your speed is damn good tho

        • +1

          We were on vivid but we found we needed speed and dont really blow over our data limit since we have a decent data pool

      • +1

        250mbps?? Do you nest in one of their towers?? I'm lucky if I get >30mbps.

    • +1

      Get a Huawei modem router from Optus. I'm using it at home currently with add on $3 antennas from eBay. Get around 45mbps/30mbps

      • Which antennas did you buy? I found any antennas that I used made the reception worse. Didn't want to invest in a $100 antenna as I get pretty good speed already and its temporary for me until NBN arrives.

        • +1

          Some cheap ones that were advertised as being for the Huawei modem. I used a tool on my PC to optimise position of the antennas. Having both horizontal exactly made the signal quality the best. Significant improvements on attenuation and SNR although I think speed is ultimately capped due to network congestion/sharing. Also the default band Optus tries to shove you on is sh!t as it's optimised for download rather than upload as well. Was very flakey. Definitely try to lock different bands and do speed tests. I need fast uploads as I do a lot of cloud backups

        • @julz: I looked into the Huawei modem initially and it is the cheaper option. The only downside is the maximum download speed is 150mbps with a single connection whereas the Netgear ac800s modem has triple aggregation for a theoretical max of 450mbps (seen someone get 420mbps in Queensland). However, downside of the ac800s + smart cradle is that it retails for much more unless you're as lucky as I was and sniped the cradle cheaply on eBay.

        • @DangerNoodle:
          Cool. I wonder if upgrading the modem at my house would enable me to achieve better speeds. I suspect not as my Oneplus 5 isn’t able to get faster speeds on Optus.

        • @julz: The Oneplus 5 has a cat 12 modem capable of 600/150mbps speeds. If you buy the ac800s modem, it would unfortunately be slower than the Oneplus 5. Optus tend to also allocate speed preferentially to phone sims vs mobile broadband sims which would increase the gap in speed between your oneplus 5 and any modem you use. Only way around this I've found is to find a router that supports usb tethering (seems to be mostly asus routers) and connect a phone to it with a phone sim that is a part of the data pool.

        • @DangerNoodle: Optus tend to also allocate speed preferentially to phone sims vs mobile broadband sims

          Dick move.

        • Be prepared for NBN to not be any better. I'm ditching it for this deal after nearly a year. And I already know (from my phone) that my Optus 4G reception isn't that great.

        • @NeBlackCat: Maybe the NBN died with Malcolm.

        • @quarrymaster:
          RIP Australia. Ask for a plot next to Trump's USA and post Brexit UK.

    • Unifi has 'user groups' which you can use to apply bandwidth limits on a per device basis. If you're talking about a total download cap per device per month though, I'm not sure.

  • I've been on the 100gb sim for a while now and it's pretty awesome having so much data on the go if you Travel like me

  • +7

    Might get this and ditch my embarrassingly shit ADSL2.

  • For home networking solutions, would there be much of a difference in download/upload speed if you were to chuck this into an old phone and use that as a hotspot vs using a modem?

    • Phone will pick up better signal but give out less. It will also hammer the battery making its lifespan short.

    • +1

      Depends on what category 4g it is.

    • May be better off with a modem as it's only job is to be a modem.

      Depends on the phone ofcourse.

      • The phone would be my old S7. I'll trial it and see how I go. If worse comes to worse I'll grab a modem. This is all just a temporary solution as I wait for NBN.

        • Your s7 would be on par/better with the Optus ac800s modem I use, as long as you only use it for devices in close proximity in your gousehold due to range. These two devices both use a cat 9 modem module with triple carrier aggregation for a theoretical max of 450. The cheap Huawei modems only hav a theoretical max of 150/mbps. Even though you think 150mbps sound nice, the triple carrier aggregation will always be faster due to more connections.

          Phones can tether faster in some cases due to beefier CPUs compared to those in the modems. Newer phones can be much faster since some new phones have cat 16 modem which allow a theoretical max speed of 1000mbps. Newer phones are presently the only option if you want this level of speed with Optus since the Netgear nighthawk M1 doesn't support some of the main Optus bands.

        • @DangerNoodle:
          Are there any routers (physical or VM) that can USB tether to a phone for the WAN?

        • +1

          @NeBlackCat: Asus routers support USB tether for a lot of phones. Official support list seems to stop at the Samsung s6 in their Taiwan, new phones may work. https://www.asus.com/event/networks_3G4G_support/

          It seems to be routers using the asuswrt based firmware. You can flash openwrt firmware onto Asus routers to add unofficial support.

          I've been using the Netgear ac800s modem so I've got the cradle to handle the Ethernet ports.

          With 5g around the corner, getting a router that supports USB 3.0 may be handy for futureproofing any USB tethering support. And because 5g support is around the corner, it's better to tether annold phone than buy a modem setup at the moment since 5g modems will be much faster.

        • @DangerNoodle:
          Cheers mate.

          I'm currently using an Asus RT-N16 with DD-WRT (for NBN). It has USB (not sure if 1.1 or 2).

          I'll have to see if OpenWrt exists for it and give it a try. It's a bit crappy but it would be handy to keep using it once I switch to Optus 4g, until 5g comes along.

        • @NeBlackCat:

          If you're using DD-WRT then you may already be good to go as long as you have updated the firmware.

          Found this link with a quick google, I'm not experienced with linux but I hope it helps. https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Cellular_Phone/USB_Mo…

          you can always test this with your current phone and see if it works?

        • @DangerNoodle:
          Thanks for all your info, mate. I thought I'd posted a long reply with further questions, but it doesn't seem to be here.

          I guess I'm mainly wondering: if you enable 4G sharing over USB on your phone, what does it then look like when you connect it to a host's USB port? A (USB connected) virtual Ethernet port to a router? Serial port with SLIP/PPP? Serial port with Hayes commands? Something Android specific? Something else, possibly proprietary?

          Can't even try it on my (LineageOS) phone, as tethering is one of the many things that kills it.

    • +2

      I'm using an S6 with a smashed screen. Getting about 38-45 Mbps. I use a pooled plan to record ESPN & others on my Fetch box. My home plan is ADSL1 on paired-gain so impossible to record more than 1 non-FTA channel on Fetch at the same time - and I'm lucky to get 1 channel when the neighbours are home. The only problem with the S6 is that the software doesn't allow you to set a limit higher than 100GB for the month so I have to fiddle with the monthly start and end date settings to make sure I don't go over @ the end of the month. If anyone has a fix for this, let me know. I have had a quick look but can't see anything.

  • $10 metered. Deal breaker in the era of endless.

  • +1

    I signed up a while back when it was 70$ for 200gb month to month. Its great. Much better then adsl. Cheers

  • currently with vivid wireless. will this sim work with Huawei B315 modem? Thanks

    • +1

      Yes it will. This is what im doing at the moment

      • what speed you are getting?

      • Good to know, I have a B315s-607 and they told me it was locked to their SIM.

        What's its performance like? Still artificially speed limited?

  • we automatically add an additional 1GB data for $10 to your account.

    Is there any way to disable this "feature"? That could get costly very quickly.

    Metering yourself with modem or software is fairly unreliable, at best meaning you don't get to use the full amount you've payed for.

    • I believe you have to purchase each extra 1GB seperately. So you dont have to worry. Also many households struggle to even use 200gb.

      • "Automatically" specifically means it's not a manual purchase, and I'm only concerned with my own usage not that of an average household.

    • The metering on optus' end is fairly quick an accurate. Despite their 48 hour warning, I dually get messages within minutes. Usually I tell everyone in my household to slow down when/if we get the SMS saying we've used 85% of our data

  • Hoping for some advice here -

    I'm current on optus on my mobile plan, and have a home wireless broadband too.

    For some reason, my home wifi gives me download speeds of about 4-6 mbps, while at the same time it's around 18 mbps on my mobile.

    I've had a chat to optus and they've given me some spiel about it being a different type of network etc etc.

    Will getting this data sim thingo give me speeds closer to what i'm getting on my mobile? TIA!

    • Could be your modem, could be the Wi-Fi technology supported by the modem.

    • +2

      Home wireless broadband via Optus or vivid wireless is capped at 12mbps on the Sim card. Nothing you can do to speed it up. Different network/throttled speeds

      • That's right, Hone Wireless uses the 2300 mhz band with max 12Mbs/s, so that spiel was correct.

  • Is it 20% off at HN? Still think the note 9 deal better.

    Wonder whether can get this with the tab s4 and the note 9 and sell both off. About 70/month for 400gb. Not too bad if not getting nbn anytime soon

  • *Mbps

  • If you sign up for the "Month to Month" does that mean you will only get double data for the first month?

    • I'm pretty sure that its ongoing.

      The only difference is that you don't get the streaming benefits.

      Double check with chat to be on the safe side.

      • You'd have to check with them but the last time I signed up for month by month in March it said double data for 24 months clearly. Unsure why it doesn't state the duration clearly this time around.

  • Um… this seems a little strange:

    200gig data, but restricted data beyond 150gb?

    "General
    ADDITIONAL DATA:
    If you use more than 150GB on a single billing account we may continue to charge you at the same rates or restrict your data use until next billing period."

    • +1

      What this means is if you use more than 150gb above and beyond your 200gb - i.e. 350gb+ worth of data…

      • Ah. that'd make more sense. Though interesting that they stipulate that… I guess it avoids bill shock going beyond $1500…

  • Is Netflix streaming data free only on mobile? If you cast it from mobile to TV is it still unmetred?

    • +1

      Hmmm I believe mobile only
      But in saying that (and I'm sure somebody can give more info) when you cast to a TV (let's say chromecast) does the chromecast connect to Netflix directly, or via the mobile device?

      • +2

        It streams (from Netflix) through whatever internet-connected WiFi network you put it on. You could of course activate the hotspot on your phone and set the Chromecast up to use that, if you wanted to take advantage of unmetered Netflix on your 4G plan.

        • Thanks - figured as much but wanted to be sure

    • +1

      I’m currently using it in my Huawei e5186 modem router casting to a chromecast. Works fine and may even work at Full HD. Pretty sure it’s unmetered as I don’t seem to use much data when watching Netflix.

  • Just signed up for the 24 months with the Samsung S4 tablet. It'll be doing duties as my home internet connection. Might throw the SIM into a separate 4g modem so i don't kill the battery on the tablet from hotspotting full time.

    • +1

      Same here. Just replaced my craptastic 50/20/250gb/$60 NBN service (which in reality is more like 10/2/250gb/$150 that works every other Tuesday) with 50/30/200gb (pooled)/$70 Optus LTE and a free $1k tablet for the fun of it.

      Couldn't be happier (without involving Jennifer Lawrence in some way).

      No doubt that will all change when I start actually using it.

      Major poopoos that the Tab S4 doesn't have fingerprint recognition and HDMI out though (what's the point of the Dex UI if you can't use a proper screen?).

      • +1

        The advantage of the tablet that I'm seeing on the specs list is that it has a similar spec modem to the nighthawk m1 from telstra, ie. it supports up to 10 simultaneous connections for a max theoretical speed of 1000mbps downstream. If you can get it to work with your asus router running dd-wrt firmware as a usb tether (hopefully supported by the tab s4) then you can truly spank nbn if the 4g networks arent saturated in your area. More bandwidth will be popping up soon as towers are being upgraded to cope with speed demands for 5g.

        The advantage of USB-C is the higher power output and the higher bandwidth, so it supports docking station devices like this https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Notebooks/Docking-Statio… which has a hdmi port, usb ports and an ethernet port (unsure if you could use this instead to make your tablet/phone tether to your router). You could use it as a dock at home, leave a screen plugged into the hdmi port, plug your keyboard and mouse into the usb ports, and just plug it into your tablet when you need it. Can't find much info on android support but i dont see any issues since Targus has one that supports android https://www.targus.com/au/dual-video-universal-docking-stati…

        There are cheaper ones with less ports as well https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Notebooks/Docking-Statio…

        • Yeah I know mate, but I mainly want the tablet to be a tablet. Might even sell it and get a Huawei M5 (lesser 4G performance but lovely portable tablet). USB-C (carrying USB 3.0, and hopefully backed up with some fast UFS 2.1 or even 3.0 storage) is nice to have, but it's only really helpful (to me anyway) if the device is portable enough to be with me all the time, and can then be a fast, zero cost 250GB portable storage device too. Stick portable VirtualBox and some VMs on it, for example. Dispense with the keyring flash drives that always break.

          I was hoping the Tab S4 would have an HDMI out so that I could occasionally run the Dex UI on my monitor without having to buy a dock (Dex or generic) too. Not a deal breaker though. I am a fifth generation tightwad after all.

          I'd love to get my hands on a generic docks that could be programmed with 3rd party firmware, as was possible with some HDD docks (Seagate IIRC) a while back. Let a laptop be a phone/tablet KVM. Been wanting to do that for years. If you know of any….

        • @NeBlackCat: in terms of generic docks I guess it depends on what you're after. I backed a Kickstarter project called the Superbook a few years back. Product is finally shipping out to backers at the moment. Essentially it's a laptop dock for Android/windows devices, you plug your device in via usb and your device runs the 10inch 1080p screen, keyboard and touchpad. Advantage 8s when you upgrade your phone you essentially upgrade the performance of the system. Runs using the sentio desktop Android app.

          I'm still waiting for mine which should hopefully arrive soon. Not sure if it's what you're after?

        • @DangerNoodle:
          Yes I remember that (Superbook). Was very tempted myself. Do you know the nature of the interface between their "desktop app" (running on the phone) and the "laptop" that's connected via USB OTG?

          Anyway, it's kind of the opposite to what I want. I want the device's standard Android screen to be visible in a window on a standard Windows PC that exists on the same network (which might be the entire internet). Just like VNC normally does, but that doesn't exist any more as a server for Android. Or Teamviewer, but that only supports a handful of devices.

          A phone dock with HDMI support knows how to copy the device's screen to a physically attached HDMI monitor. If you can get at thr dock's firmware, then that monitor could be remote. That was my thinking.

          It all arises because I need to hand-hold my 300yo parents in the UK, while they use their smartphones that they're clueless about. We need to share their screens, in a way that is zero config (they could probably manage "stick it in this dock I sent you)". It's way harder than you might think.

        • +1

          @NeBlackCat: the laptop dock essentially mirrors everything that is on the device using the display link protocols. From the breakdown of the builds I've seen, essentially it's running an internal USB hub similar to what I linked you previously except that it already has the screen keyboard trackpad and USB port connected.

          Not too sure about hacking the firmware though but I can sort of see what you're after. So what you're after is something similar to chrome remote desktop but runs the other way so you can dial into their android device instead? The closest thing I can find is airmirror? They run the app on their end, you run it on your end and you can see what's on their screen and control their device remotely.

        • @DangerNoodle:

          Everything that's on the device? So if you don't run their desktop app, you can interact with the standard Android UI from the Superbook, just like you had a VNC/RDP session to it?

          It was my understanding that very few Android devices (mainly some LG ones iirc) came with DisplayLink support built in. So, at some point, you have to install some software on the device that monitors its screen in the background and sends changes (in the DisplayLink protocol) out through the USB port (in OTG mode) to a connected dock and display (emulated by the Superbook in this case).

          I just want to know how to get a phone to send its screen contents out its USB port (in DisplayLink protocol) to any attached DisplayLink-compatible device. Then, the latter could be, say, a bespoke virtual display that forwards the screen data on to an actual DisplayLink device potentially on the other end of the planet.

          Out of curiosity, do you know if the Displaylink protocol has any relationship to Miracast? Both doing the same thing essentially.

  • Any idea when the latest is that one can activate this and still qualify for the extra 100GB? Currently in a contract.

    • +1

      Offer ends September 2nd. Check your contract, they changed them a while ago so most of them have no termination fees. I just cancelled my 12 month $70/month for 200gb contract to sign up for the $80/month for 200gb + free 256gb Samsung galaxy tab s4 since the $10 bundling discount available at the moment brings it back down to my original $70 per month.

  • Hi bit of a noob question here…

    Can anyone spoon feed me on how to use this sim only data plan for wireless broadband in the house via modem? Do majority of modems have a SIM slot?

    Also what speeds can we expect?

    Cheers

    • +1

      All covered in @DangerNoodle 's early post. The Smart Cradle he mentions can be had for $100 on eBay. There are several Aircard hot spots you can then get to house the sim and plug into it (the one he uses is the Netgear 800s aka Telstra ac800s).

      This is a cost effective way to go.

      The Aircard provides the 4G link, and can be used by itself if you just need simple 4G sharing over WiFi, and don't need an extra strong WiFi signal. It has a rechargeable battery, so you can take it with you when travelling, saving you phone from having to be the hotspot.

      If you need stronger WiFi signals around your home and/or more advanced router functions, then you get the Smart Cradle to plug it into.

      I imagine that when 5G arrives, you keep the cradle and upgrade the Aircard.

      There are lots of other options too, depending on your needs and budget. At the low end you could use an old phone in hotspot mode. At the other end there are expensive integrated 4G routers. In the middle you might be able to pick up a used Vivid wireless LTE router for cheap (if, as mentioned above, it will work on regular Optus 4G SIMs and without throttling).

      I'm thinking of going with an LTE modem that has failover (*) (eg. Netgear LB2120 for around $170) and a Ubiquity WiFi access point (very nice and cost effective).

      (*) failover means it will connect to the internet another way if necessary. I already have NBN (and the gear) which is being ditched for Optus 4G because it doesn't work. However I can imagine having a month to month NBN service at certain times in the future, and this is how I'll integrate it.

      • Thanks so much for the reply what speeds can we expect from the aircards?

        Anyone have any recommendations for the aircards they use?

        • Speed depends on so many things mate. Your environment, your nearest towers, other people doing LTE stuff to the same tower, features of your modem, where you put it, whether you use an external antenna, time of day etc.

          All I can really say is that the aircards (eg. 790s which can be had for around $100) have band locking, carrier aggregation, Cat 6 and support the Smart Cradle and external antennae.

          Which is a decent array of tools to milk the best out of whatever Optus can realistically do at your location. Better tools then start to get really expensive (eg. moving to a custom built treehouse in Optus's least used tower).

          The LB2120 is cheaper (once you factor in a Smart Cradle) but doesn't have those features. That said, it still has many happy users who like the speeds they get compared to their previous ADSL.

  • +1

    Extended until 1/10

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