Telstra network/coverage
Telstra has the widest mobile coverage in Australia, spanning over 2.6 million kilometres and covering 99.4 percent of the population. The giant telco has a presence in over 1,600 towns and communities throughout Australia, making them the go-to telco for SIM plans, even in regional and rural Australia.
Telstra leads in all coverage and network categories – 3G, 4G, or 5G. The latest mobile network is the fifth generation wireless network technology, or 5G, which Telstra began rolling out commercially in 2019.
Today, the telco has the widest 5G coverage in Australia, covering almost 80 percent of the population. The telco has also announced its 95 percent 5G coverage target by 2025.
But Telstra isn’t limited to mobile coverage or letting MVNO resellers use their network. The telco offers several other services, including free public WiFi for customers using Telstra Air. This post will tell you about Telstra Air sites and how to access WiFi for free.
Telstra free Wifi – Telstra Air
Eligible Telstra customers can get free WiFi from the telco using Telstra Air, which has over one million hotspots throughout Australia. Telstra Air is also a global network with 19 million hotspots in total.
To access Telstra Air for free, you must be a Telstra NBN customer. Some mobile customers still access Telstra Air for free, but only if they are still on an older Telstra SIM plan. Newer SIM plans no longer include free WiFi from Telstra.
Telstra Air uses several ways to bring free WiFi to Australians:
- The service uses public Telstra phone booths as hotspots
- Telstra fixed broadband customers are also WiFi hotspots unless they opt-out.
Telstra broadband customers provide free WiFi
If you’re a Telstra fixed broadband customer, you might be a Telstra Air hotspot. However, before you can access Telstra Air, you have to agree to your modem being used as a Telstra Air WiFi whenever anyone in your area needs it. Thankfully, there’s a limit to how many people can access your Telstra modem simultaneously for free WiFi.
NBN customers are not Telstra Air hotspots immediately – instead, they can only become part of the Telstra Air hotspot network after the initial two months of their NBN plan.
How to access Telstra Air as a mobile customer
Before March 2019, Telstra Air was also free for Telstra SIM plan customers. After that, however, customers on Telstra mobile plans could no longer get free WiFi.
Keep in mind that if you’re still on a plan from pre-March 2019, you should still have access to Telstra Air for free. Download the Telstra Air app and sign up with your Telstra ID to see if you’re eligible for free WiFi.
If you get free access to Telstra Air, you can enjoy unmetered speeds and data while using it. However, keep in mind that Telstra Air is public WiFi, so you should be cautious about what you do while using it or serving as a hot spot.
And if you’re not a Telstra customer, you can still access Telstra Air – for a fee. The telco offers Telstra Air guest passes for non-customers, ranging from $5 to $30 for 1 to 30 hours of unlimited access.
Public WiFi
While Telstra Air sounds like a great idea, users should remember that it is a public WiFi network. Such networks are vulnerable to significant security breaches. For example, it is not uncommon for private and financial information to be hacked and stolen while browsing on a public WiFi network.
Also, keep in mind that Telstra collects data from people who use Telstra Air – even those whose modems serve as hot spots.
Telstra claim that they only collect “aggregate data” about the following and use said data to improve their service:
- Device names;
- Timestamps;
- Data usage in megabytes;
- Operating systems;
- IP addresses and MAC addresses, and;
- The location of hotspots that devices are connected to.
Whether or not you trust Telstra to be honest in this regard is up to you. However, if you must use Telstra Air or other public WiFi networks, remember to browse cautiously.
Conclusion
There is no such thing as free. Telstra Air could arguably be described as surveillance capitalism – one way or another, you’ll pay for those bytes you use over Telstra’s free WiFi network.
For instance, what you search for online will likely be gathered and used to sell products, regardless of what Telstra says. That might not be so bad – a quid pro quo you’re prepared to accept to benefit from the free WiFi facility you’ve been given and the savings you’ve made from not having to use your own (quite expensive) mobile data all the time.
You might also want to consider the security ramifications of using a shared, public network. The world has bad people in it as well as good, and some will lurk on a public WiFi connection such as that offered by Telstra and take advantage of innocent users who access it.
We suggest using a VPN whenever you’re on a free Telstra WiFi connection.