Vodafone’s $39 per month with 5 Gigabytes of data – Review

Ok, so I’ve had the Vodafone data card for about 3 months now and have been loving the idea of having access to the Internet wherever I go, for what I believe is a reasonable price.

I am what I like to call “addicted to the internet”.

Here’s a list of Pro’s and Con’s:

Pro’s:

1. 3G Coverage is pretty much available everywhere.

Vodafone’s GSM (2G) network covers up to 94.52%* of the Australian population. Our GPRS (2.5G) network covers 92% of the places you live and work in Australia. Our 3G broadband network covers metropolitan areas in Sydney, Central Coast, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, Adelaide and Perth, plus all major international airports, and is constantly expanding.

Bellow is a map show coverage of 3G in dark purple in my area:

2. The dongle is small and aesthetically pleasing.

3. The USB dongle will work on most Operating Systems and even and EeePC without any drivers.

Con’s:
1. GPRS (2.5G) speeds are too slow to use compared to say Telstra’s semi-decent EDGE network which averages around 10KB/s where as GPRS is about 2KB/s though as I mainly travel within the dark puprle suburban areas there is not too many issues.

2. There are drop outs occasionally but I have found by using the provided USB lead, hanging the USB dongle up higher seems to get rid of this issue.

3. Vodafone’s website does not tally your overall usage (Vodafone have fixed this issue) and has many inconstancies as complained about on Whirlpool – so if you are really conscious about your usage I’d suggest signing up with someone like Optus, who offer practically the same coverage, although you have to bundle such a plan with them.

In conclusion, I think I’ve found a great service at a great price, so…Bye, bye Telstra

Speed Test: