Hanging up on Optus? We’ve got some alternatives

By Jack Dona · · 2 min read
Fact Checked
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A man holding a retro rotary telephone

From a data breach that affected over a third of the Australian population to a nationwide outage just last week, Optus customers have been through the wringer over the past two years. 

The Singapore-owned telco is one of the largest telecommunications providers in Australia, but there are plenty of other options out there if you’re considering switching from Optus to another provider – some could even save you money while providing similar services.

What caused the Optus outage? 

The outage was caused by “a network event on 8 November 2023 [that] triggered a cascading failure which resulted in the shutdown of services to our customers”. 

Those affected included mobile phone plan customers, home internet users, businesses, hospitals, and (even) the Melbourne train network. 

Also affected were MVNOs that piggybacked off the Optus network. These include: 

  • amaysim 
  • Aussie Broadband 
  • Catch Connect 
  • Circles.Life 
  • Coles Mobile 
  • Dodo 
  • iPrimus 
  • Moose Mobile 
  • Southern Phone 
  • SpinTel 
  • Yomojo. 

What is Optus giving customers affected by the outage? 

In response to the outage, Optus is offering:

  • Up to 200GB of free data for eligible mobile and tablet plan customers 
  • Unlimited data on weekends for prepaid customers (from 18 November to 31 December 2023)  
  • Bonus data for business customers 
  • Free Internet Turbocharge in December for NBN customers 
  • Uncapped 5G speeds in December for 5G Home Internet customers 
  • Upgraded plan speeds in December for 4G Home Internet customers.

So, if you’re an existing Optus customer and that’s enough of an apology for you, feel free to stop reading here. 

For the rest of you, here are some Optus alternatives for your mobile plan. 

Mobile phone plan alternatives to Optus 

First off, we’ve got Telstra and Vodafone plans.

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But the major telcos often come with a steeper price tag. So, it’s also worth considering MVNOs (smaller telcos) that use the Vodafone and Telstra networks, as they generally come in cheaper and offer a wider range of data inclusions than the big players. 

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But before you choose one, make sure you compare mobile phone plans to find the latest deals, like double-data inclusions, discounted monthly fees, and more.