Coles Mobile Plan
Review and Comparison
- Well known reliable brand
- Easy to recharge online and in store
- Coles Mobile use the Optus 3G & 4G network
What's good
- Well known brand - reliable
- Recharging is easy - tie in with weekly shop
- Auto-recharge option
- Great coverage with the Optus 4G network
- Data rollover
- Choose between prepaid and month-to-month plans
What's bad
- No entertainment options
- Customer service based in the Philippines
Coles – Another Supermarket Phone Company – Great for $20 Monthly spends
We recommend Coles for $20 monthly spend levels and $10, 10 day recharges, especially if you are a Coles shopper who visits the store regularly, students, females aged 30-59, Tourists and mums / kids.
Introducing Coles Mobile – 60 second summary
Coles the supermarket has joined Woolworths and ALDImobile in providing mobile phone services. Here’s what we think in a nutshell.
- We recommend Coles Mobile for $20 monthly spend levels and 30-day recharges, especially if you are a Coles shopper who visits the store regularly. Additionally, Coles Mobile will fit students, women aged 30-59, Tourists, and mums/kids.
- Coles Mobile now offers both month-to-month and prepaid plans so you have a wide variety to choose from.
- Coles Mobile’s $20 plan is about the best data inclusion you’ll get in any prepaid price plan for that monthly spend. We recommend a 2GB data allocation for average users at the moment, and Coles’ $20 plan includes 15 GB.
- As you will see from our infographics below, Coles outperforms the competition on the key price points they have in the market.
- Coles Mobile uses the full Optus 4G Network. ALDImobile and Woolworths use a proportion of the Telstra Mobile network. In actual population coverage terms, there is very little difference between the networks that Coles Mobile, ALDImobile, and Woolworths resell.
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Getting the basics right about Coles’ Mobile offer
Coles is a widely-known supermarket chain. Their mobile company, Coles Mobile, has been around for a while now, making them one of the longer-established MVNOs in the Australian telco market. As an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), Coles resells the Optus 3G and 4G network and their intention is quite clear – focus on the value-conscious shoppers who come through their stores every week. Understandably, they want to use those visitors and their loyalty to secure more of what’s in their wallets. As a result (and following a precedent set by some supermarkets in the UK – notably, Tesco), Coles has joined Australia’s two other major grocers in selling prepaid phone plans.
Unlike other grocery prepaid phone plans, however, Coles is doing things a little differently. The primary unique selling point for Coles Mobile plans is the recharging frequency on their low-end plan and the data inclusion on their mid-tier plan.
There are a number of ways you can go about being a phone company. Coles Mobile has chosen the easiest. Coles Mobile service is essentially just Optus painted a different colour – except for their plan lineup. Everything else from the packaging on the SIM, to the customer support you’ll get, is exactly the same as Optus. To be clear on what this means – we bought and tested a service when reviewing Coles Mobile as we do for all of our plans and partners. Coles Mobile support is based in the Philippines. When you call Coles Mobile Customer Service, you are put through to an Optus customer service representative!
New SIM plans from Coles Mobile -- Month-to-month and prepaid plans
Coles Mobile now offers 6 total mobile plans, 3 of which are long expiry plans while the rest have a 30-day expiry. The unique part about Coles’ lineup is that 2 of its plans are month-to-month plans, while the rest are typical prepaid plans which are recharged manually by the customer. This gives customers a new choice that wasn’t previously available – if you avoid prepaid plans because you often forget to recharge on time, then Coles’ month-to-month plans are for you.
- 2 month-to-month plans :
Coles Mobile’s two month-to-month plans include 45GB to 70GB of data. However, their current promo boosts data inclusions to 90GB and 180GB, respectively, for the first 6 months, after which the data inclusions go back to normal. - Prepaid plan :
Coles offers one normal-expiry prepaid plan which includes 15GB of data and lasts for 30 days. - 3 Long-expiry plans :
Coles Mobile also offers 3 long expiry plans including 60GB to 200GB of data for 365 days. Their biggest long-expiry plan costs $200 and includes 200 GB, but a current promo offer has slashed the cost to $169 for the first 365 days.
Great stuff about Coles Mobile Plans
Coles is a brand you can trust, which is important when buying any product. It’s especially important when you’re buying a SIM plan and you don’t want to risk losing service. To start, all of Coles Mobile’s plans come with Unlimited Talk and Text, but the benefits don’t end there. We also think Coles Mobile plans are good because :
- 15GB of data @ $20 for a 30-day plan :
Average usage is in the region of 2GB of 4G data. Having 15GB should provide more than enough data for an average user over a 30-day period. - Long expiry plans available :
Coles Mobile offers 6 mobile plans in their lineup, 3 of which are long-expiry 360-day plans – the other 3 plans are normal 30-day expiry plans. The variety doesn’t stop there – 2 of their plans are month-to-month plans while 4 are prepaid, so you’ll find a plan than suits your needs. - Retail and online presence :
A lot of the drawbacks of having a prepaid service revolved around the inconvenience of having to remember to manually recharge your service. Postpaid services (effectively) ‘recharge themselves.’ If you’re using one of Coles’ prepaid services, you need to be able to recharge easily or you’ll be without service for a while and no one likes that. Thankfully, you’re never far from a Coles Mobile, and even f you are, you can recharge online through the Coles Mobile App. - AutoRecharge for peace of mind :
If having the option of recharging at a Coles store or online is still an inconvenience, then you can use their AutoRecharge option. This option recharges your Coles Mobile plan automatically so you don’t have to – just like a postpaid plan, but you’ll be charged at the beginning of each recharge. - $10 for more data :
The industry standard for adding extra data to a prepaid plan is $10 per GB. One of our concerns about that is 1GB might not be enough for the remainder of the month. Coles Mobile charges you $10 for 3GB of data (a lot more data than the industry standard), so you don’t have to worry about having too little data added before your plan expires. However, keep in mind that Coles’ Data Extras expire 5 days from the date of purchase. Also note that, if you purchase another Data Extra before exhausting your last pack, you will lose your previous Data Extra. - Rollover data :
Coles now offers data rollover! Just recharge before your plan’s expiry (or remain on AutoRecharge) and any data you haven’t used will roll over to the next recharge, up to a maximum of 500GB, depending on the plan you choose. - Options on International Minutes :
All Coles Mobile plans include unlimited International SMS/MMS. Plans also include unlimited International calls to 15 selected countries. If you want to call other countries that aren’t included, Coles Mobile offers a $15 add-on for extra international minutes and premium services, as well as a $25 International roaming pack. - Great 4G network :
As you’ll see from the infographic below. Coles uses a network that is equivalent to the other grocer alternatives. - It’s basically Optus :
You’re getting the best of both Coles Mobile and Optus, in many ways. You can recharge conveniently ( even receiving FlyBuys 1 point per $ spent ) if you do. But you get Optus coverage and experienced customer support if you contact them remotely.
Stuff that’s not so great about Coles Mobile Plans
- Crowded Optus resellers :
There are a lot of companies selling Optus’ network with their own price plans already. Coles Mobile need something special to stand out. - Won’t get entertainment :
Entertainment options are now a part of many phone plans. If these or other value added services are important to you, Coles Mobile is not the provider you need.
Comparing Coles Mobile Network Coverage with the alternatives
The biggest question most people will have when comparing Coles Mobile and the alternatives from high street retailers is around network coverage. As we’ve said, Coles Mobile uses the Optus 3G and 4G network. ALDImobile and Woolworths both use the Telstra Mobile Network, now with 4G. If that was all you needed to know, it would probably be quite clear. But that’s not all you need to know.
The Australian Optus 4G network offers great coverage and connections to 97.3% of the Australian population, and their overall network covers 98.5% of the population at the last count. From a landmass perspective, the Optus network provides coverage over a surface area of more than 1.2 million kilometers of land.
The key thing you need to understand when comparing these plans is that ALDImobile and Woolworths do not use the entire Telstra network. They use a portion of it. The coverage footprint is similar to the more than 1 million square Kilometers that Optus have.
You can see from the population coverage chart here that there are only 2-3% of people who will benefit from coverage under the ALDImobile plan. Unless you live in the most remote 2-3 % of the population, then, the chances are, Coles Mobile is just as good.
Coles Mobile uses the Optus network, meaning 98.5% of Australians will get coverage on Coles Mobile plans.
Coles Mobile Customer Service
Coles Mobile services now come with an app, which has become a must-have in today’s day and age. The Coles Mobile App is a fully functional self-service app that you can use to check your usage, top up data and purchase extras, change your plan, find help and support, and more.
Activation messages for your service come from Optus. The Customer Information Statement, (which is a summary of all the call charges you’ll get with your plan and a legal requirement for your phone company to provide ), is housed on an Optus web page. Coles Mobile customer service really is a thin veneer over Optus’ existing infrastructure.
That said, the customer service we received from a Filipino team was perfectly good. There were no communication problems, the staff was friendly, efficient, and, importantly, knew they were dealing with a ‘Coles Mobile customer.’
In Conclusion – Coles Mobile add real value and alternatives in a complex market
Once you’re In the world of smaller phone companies, things become extremely competitive very quickly. There are already a lot of phone companies which resell the Optus 3G and 4G network. Amaysim, Vaya, Bendigo Bank and so on.
Coles Mobile plans, adds noise, a bit of heat and a small amount of incremental choice to the current deals on the market. But they do offer a couple of unique elements. A $20 plan with unlimited voice and SMS and more than enough data for an average user is market leading. Getting that same plan for just $10 on the first recharge based on their current promo is even better. These inclusions are all the more impressive when you consider the quality of the offering. By essentially repainting the Optus facilities they want, Coles Mobile offers customers a doubly whammy. They blend the convenience of a retail recharge using the high street branding we know and trust of Coles – and get the experienced telco customer service and coverage of Optus. It’s a clever combination and it ties in well with Coles’ reputation for affordability.
Naturally Coles Mobile have chosen to address the niche they know most about : Retail shoppers. They’ve also addressed the elephant in the room and taken themselves head to head with ALDImobile. Overall, the plans are worthwhile. If you meet the specification of the recommended buyer, get stuck in.
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