Family data sharing no longer available on Telstra personal plans

Telstra refreshed its phone plans this week, but it looks like it's buried a big change in the fine print: shareable data has been axed on personal plans.

Up until Tuesday, all of Telstra's postpaid handset, SIM-only, tablet, and most mobile broadband plans included shareable data as part "Family Sharing". If you had multiple plans on the same bill, your data would be added to a single pool that could be used across multiple devices.

Critical Information Summaries for Telstra's new range of plans now all feature the clause "data is not shareable". This clause is included in Critical Information Summaries for mobile plans with a new phone, mobile lease plans, SIM-only mobile plans, tablet plans, and mobile broadband plans. The only personal plans still include shareable data are Telstra's "home wireless go data plus" range. Customers are also no longer able to add data sharing SIMs at checkout.

Previous Critical Information Summaries explicitly referred to data as shareable and listed the plans that data could be pooled with.

Telstra introduced Family Sharing back in 2015, but all references to Family Sharing now appear to have been scrubbed from its website. Telstra customers on older plans that included Family Sharing will continue to have access to a shared pool, but presumably won't be able to add it to.

Data sharing is still available on Telstra's small business plans, which are similar to its consumer offering but don't include "peace of mind" data or unlimited data options. Small business customers can still add a $5 data sharing SIM to their bill, allowing them to use their existing data on another device without the need for a second plan. An ABN is required to sign-up for a Telstra small business plan.

We've reached out to Telstra for comment and clarification, but have yet to receive a response.

Alex Choros

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Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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