Mobile Phones Australia

You will probably want a mobile phone when you visit Australia. Your overseas mobile phone could well work but mobile telephone calls will be expensive.

Australia uses second and third generation (3G) mobile telecommunication technology. The mobile phone technology provides coverage to 99% of the Australian population BUT only 25% of the landmass of Australia. Coverage is a very important factor when choosing your prepaid mobile plan. If you become lost in the Outback then you might want to be ablel to use your phone to help you. Even in civilised areas like our home base on the Sunshine Coast we cannot obtain coverage in some of the streets at Sunshine Beach. Once you hit Fraser Island then even more complicated, so do check when you purchase on the mobile phone coverage in Australia. CDMA services provide wider coverage than GSM, but GSM is more widely used mainly because it works well in the city areas but less well in rural areas. Optus, Telstra and Vodafone had established GSM networks and Telstra and Orange also have CDMA networks.

To purchase a prepaid mobile phone you will need to provide either one of the category A documents or two of the Category B documents. Probably the easiest is your passport or driving licence which are Category A documents. This is required so that the mobile phone service provider can activate your mobile phone. The information collected is subject to the Telecommunications Act 1997.

Not everything is better about prepaid mobiles and one issue is that many have an expiration date for minutes and the cost per minute of a mobile phone is higher than for a normal Australia mobile phone on a plan. There are a number of prepaid mobile phone service providers. You can just use your own mobile phone or perhaps buy another cheap one and then you can keep your overseas phone as a back up if needed. Sometimes your overseas phone will have been locked to your international mobile service provider. There are many mobile phones in Australia and very easy to sort out on arrival.

Australia mobile phone providers

Dodo
Virgin mobile
Vodafone
Three
Optus
Just mobile
Telstra
Soul
Isim

Telstra is the largest and the original government owned telecommunications company but now has a lot of competition. However we have to say that if you are travelling rural areas Telstra does have the best mobile coverage in Australia and that is a serious issue.

All calls on Australia mobile phones to emergency numbers are free and the number to use is 000. If your mobile phone is lost or stolen do contact the phone company immediately and the local police as they do often get handed in if found.