{"id":660,"date":"2024-03-15T10:36:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T00:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thingstodoexploringaustralia.com.au\/?p=660"},"modified":"2025-01-08T16:41:26","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T06:41:26","slug":"what-internet-service-works-best-for-travelling-around-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thingstodoexploringaustralia.com.au\/?p=660","title":{"rendered":"What internet service works best for travelling around Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What is the best travel wifi internet plan for Australia?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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There are a few options for internet and telephone coverage in Australia.<\/p>

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The right option for you will depend on:<\/span><\/p>

A. Where you are wanting to travel to.<\/span><\/p>

B. How much data you need<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>

C. How much you want to spend.<\/span><\/p>

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The main options are:<\/span><\/p>

1. To use a 4G or 5G portable wi fi device using a SIM card from a mobile phone carrier with enough data to cover the amount of data that you will use each month. This can be provided via a 4G\/5G portable mobile hotspot or by activating your mobile phone hot spot to allow connection of your wifi enabled devices to access the internet.<\/p>

2. Use a satellite device that can provide higher percentage of land coverage and\/or a higher speed connection that a 4G\/5G service.\u00a0<\/p>

3. Free internet hot spots, eg at MacDonalds, cafe’s, airport. If you use a Telstra service you can also get free wifi from many telephone booths.<\/p>

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What Telecommunications company provides the best coverage?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The main telcos for Australia are Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. There are many Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO’s) that use the aforementioned telcos as their carrier.<\/p>

Research into the MVNO’s and the coverage they provide do not always match the main telcos coverage.<\/p>

When looking into the coverage areas of Australian Telcos and MVNO’s, they show a percentage of coverage.<\/p>

This is not a percentage of the land area it is a percentage of population. Meaning that even though the % coverage is 99.6% of the population, you can see by the coverage map that all telcos cover less than 50% of the land area by following this link.<\/p>

Best coverage Australia: Telstra vs. Optus vs. Vodafone | WhistleOut<\/a><\/p>
Network<\/th>Full network coverage<\/th>MVNO coverage<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Telstra network<\/td>99.6%<\/td>98.8%*<\/td><\/tr>
Optus network<\/td>98.5%<\/td>98.5%<\/td><\/tr>
Vodafone network<\/td>96%<\/td>96%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

(* there is an exception for one Telstra MVNO which is Boost<\/a> that uses the Full Telstra network coverage)<\/p>

There are some locations where only one telco has coverage.<\/p>

What internet options are there for coverage when truly going off the beaten track?<\/p>

This is where a satellite internet connection will be beneficial.<\/p>

Most telcos provide wifi calling, this allows your mobile phone to make and receive calls via an internet connection.<\/p>

The option will need to activated in your mobile phone settings, and if you cannot see it as an option then it might be that your telco does not provide this option.<\/span><\/p>

Most telcos also now allow SMS and MMS services to be sent via wifi so even if you have no mobile tower coverage you can still contact via a compatible internet connection.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What satellite internet providers are available in Australia?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Satellite internet providers in Australia are:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Starlink Internet<\/p>

Skymuster<\/p>

Inmarsat<\/p>

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The following companies sell bandwidth on the SkyMuster network:<\/p>

SkyMesh<\/p>

Activ8me<\/p>

IPStar<\/p>

Pivotel<\/p>

iiNet<\/p>

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The most talked about service would have to be Starlink.<\/p>

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They provide low earth orbit satellite coverage of all of Australia and beyond. The low earth orbit satellites relay your requests to a base station that is close to your location to allow a relatively low latency response time, and they have a fast bandwidth in all locations that I have been using the service.<\/p>

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What I did<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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When investigating the options for internet and telco coverage we decided to get a Boost pre-paid mobile service for me and a Coles pre-paid mobile service for my wife.\u00a0<\/p>

We chose these carriers as the Boost service uses the full network coverage of\u00a0Telstra<\/span>\u00a0and Coles service uses the full network coverage of\u00a0<\/span>Optus<\/span>. This way if there is mobile phone coverage in our location one of us should be able to use the phone.<\/span><\/p>

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We chose pre-paid as we wanted a fair amount of data for an affordable monthly cost, the pre-paid options for 365 days worked out to be less than $20 per month. Which, was at the time, less than most full Telstra and Optus plans and we have our mobiles connected to our wifi to save on mobile data charges.<\/p>

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The primary internet connection we decided on was to use Starlink. If you want to join Starlink you can check out the plans and coverage maps using this link:\u00a0Starlink<\/a><\/p>

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When looking back over our internet usage from the last 12 months we are using around 500GB on our main satellite connection. This connection is being used 5 days a week as my work from home internet connection. We are also using around 5GB each per month on our mobile data.<\/p>

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We sometimes leave behind the caravan and take the camper trailer which we\u00a0<\/span>then<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>rely on mobile phone data. Using the yearly pre-paid options for our mobiles we are not restricted to a set amount of data per month, we can use more than our average monthly allotment when we are away from our satellite internet connection.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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Additional information<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Felix mobile uses the Vodafone network and at the time of writing had a $40\/month plan that had unlimited data at a maximum rate of 20mbps. This is more than enough for streaming movies and video and voice calls.\u00a0SIM Only Mobile Plans | felix mobile<\/a><\/p>

I was using this as my internet connection while in a major regional town and it worked quite well. My mobile phone would often heat up and would need to be plugged into power as the battery would not last long when streaming Netflix via the mobile.<\/p>

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5G is getting better as an option, but at this stage is only covering a similar % of population as the mobile phone coverage shows.<\/p>

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If you are not going off the beaten track, then a 4G\/5G option may be suitable for your needs.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Michael works in IT, we need a reliable internet service – We have Starlink. As we move a lot, we have to be on the roaming plan; it is expensive though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t