Up to five smartphone plans can pool together data allowances under Optus’ new Family Sharing offering.
The shared plans will hedge data costs by allowing a parent or their child to tap into the unused data of another family member, said Vicky Brady, the managing director of marketing and product at Optus Australia.
“Currently around 68% of our My Plan customers are using less than 50% of their monthly data inclusions. We know that 18-20 year olds use 2.7 times more data than those over 45 years old.
“With our new Family Sharing offer, these customers can pool their data so that heavy and light data users can maximise their mobile plans and consolidate their bills,” said Brady.
All of the plans offered under Optus’ Family Sharing range come with unlimited national calls and text. Included minutes to 32 countries can be used for overseas calls
Plans start at $40 per month and offer unlimited national calls and texts, and 500MB of data. The most expensive plan is $100 a month, offers unlimited national calls and texts, 300 international minutes to select countries and a 10 gigabyte data allowance.
Customers who sign up before 5 July will get a six month subscription to Netflix.
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“We believe there are around one million households who would want to sign up for Family Sharing,” said Brady.
The new plans come into effect days before Samsung’s Galaxy S6 range go on sale in Australia, and follow large changes made Telstra’s data charges.
