On the $19 Cap there is only free 5-minute calls to on-account numbers (i.e if both you and your wife's phone were under your name then she would be able to call your phone being on the same account for free).
if her friends are optus and that is basically all, then go for a normal 'yes' plan. doing that, she can choose the "MyTime" option, where she can nominate 5 optus numbers, be it landline or mobile, and call them for free using 5-minute calls. BUT she won't recieve the 'yes' time (20 min calls in the evenings to any optus mobile) as this is a DIFFERENT option on the 'yes' plans. If she does only call a handful (5) main friends on Optus anyway, this won't affect you as the 'MyTime' is 24/7. She'll just have to rememebr that its 5min calls only always.
If you put both phones under the same name on the same account, she will still be able to call you for free (see above - 'on-account free 5 mins stuff'). I highly recommend this. I've put my partner on my account. ends up being MUCH MUCH cheaper. It cut my $280-odd of $300 usage of my cap to about $150 once i switched her into my name.
If you wanna go cheapest plan, by all means go for it... but the yes19 plan is pretty poor value.
Yes19: 19 + 19 handset =$38pm with $14 credit @ 46c/30sec
Yes39: 39 + 7 handset = $46pm with $34 credit @ 33c/30sec
Bascially, $8 more for more than double the monthly included value at a call rate thats reduced by more than 25%. In one year its an extra $100, but she gets alot more usage out of it. May aswell get a bit more bang for your buck given the small increase in monthly spend.
And she also gets 5x the data (100mb v 500mb), but that wont really affect her, ey?
In terms for you... $59 Cap is a great deal IMO - its what i personally intend on doing, but you say that you only make: "few phone calls". How few? coz you do get $350 odd. if you dont make that many, and yo really really want data more... the 'yes' plans might be a better option for you aswell.
Same deal as what your wife could go on. $39yes plan with $7 handset ($46) gets you 500mb as opposed to the $61 on the Cap.
If you really want data yo could go the $59 'yes' plan with $2 handset ($61, same spend as what you said above) but get 700mb in data instead of 500mb. trade off is that you get $54 monthly credit instead of $350. keep in mind thou, on the 'yes'59 your call rate is basically half of that on the caps (24c/30sec as opposed to 40c/30sec).
For your iPhone, i would say it dpends largely on how many calls you make at the moment.
Hope this helps mate, feel free to PM me for any more Qs.
My apologies if my explaination isn't very clear... but Optus wouldn't be making much money if everyone actually understood what they were signing their lives away too
