You can't not pay flagfall. Who are you with? Everyone has flagfall, some carriers just call it a "connection fee" though.

iSIM don't
welcome to iSIM

What's the catch? Does their service suck or something?

Plans will change in June, the competition in the market between T, O, and V to lock you into a plan will start to drive data prices down.

no, iSim as an example simply resell Optus mobile, service is identical, rates are just not a ripoff.

there are a number of resellers with similar pricing. actually iSim are not even a reseller, they are part of optus.

the only reason most telco's charge flagfalls and very high per minute charges is that the consumer accepts the model.

anyway, sorry for dragging the thread off-topic, i realise your intention is to compare different capped plans and you have done a great job of doing so with excellent visual aids.

It's run by Optus - imagine it as the home brand
My entire family is on iSIM and loving it.

Why would optus even run it if they can make more money of their normal service?

i can only assume because they are aware there are consumers out there who wont accept their normal pricing and its better to make a smaller profit from them rather than lose them to a competitor.

the wholesale cost of mobile minutes is a fraction of what the telcos charge most of their customers, it is verrry profitable business!

Yep - why do supermarkets sell Home Brand items? Same thing applies here. It's all marketing

I'm putting iSim into my data, just to compare myself to see if they're competetive. I need to know two things:
-Do they have set recharge amounts or can you recharge with however much you want?
-Do you get extra credit? Like if I buy $30 credit do I get $30 credit or $50 or something?

IF the answer to the first question is yes, and the answer to the second question is no then when compared to regular cap plans they are TERRIBLE. Less that HALF the minutes you get on a cap.

you seem to be missing the point! (yes you can recharge by any amount you like, no there are no discounts.)

its entirely dependent on your patterns of use, capped plans work by charging a flagfall & and very expensive per 30 sec charges,and bill in 30 sec blocks

if you make a large amount of long calls you can make them cost effective, the Telcos price them knowing that most people make not so many, short calls and just get hooked by the marketing spin "$49 for $500 worth of calls"

iSim charge no monthly fee, no flagfall and low per minute charges billed per second of usage. my spend is less that $10 per month, no capped plan can get near that.

Well I'm not really looking at such low usage scenarios and they probably are much better for that. Although I disagree that people get hooked by marketing and not really using that much, everyone I know uses more than $50 a month, so a cap is useful for them.

Also since my focus is on the iPhone the complete lack of data disqualifies them from consideration for me.

everyone you know uses more than $50 a month - because they are paying flagfall, high per minute charges, per 30 sec block billing! thats the point.

data is available through Optus Zoo, although i have no idea of the rates.

i do think the general discussion about alternatives to capped plans is dragging your original thread off topic, i have been a reluctant poster for some time in this one.

i also dont want to divert from the great work you have done in making the comparisons you have.

Fair enough, but I did check iSim against everyone else and if you want a certain amount of minutes, the cap cancels out the flagfall/call rates and you actually get a better deal the more you spend, and some people do need that (lots of minutes, not high spending).

I'm trying to compare pre-paid plans at the moment and they're more complicated than caps! Some change call rates depending on how much your recharge is, some offer pre-paid caps AND normal prepaid, Virgin has some weird beancounter thing that I can't wrap my head around (can you only recharge with $25?).

EDIT: Ok, I've done everyone but Optus (Optus' page won't load because I'm over our cap and I'm going 28kbps) and iSIM is the best for under $20 or less than 50 minutes per recharge, once you go over that the best is Vodafone, by FAR (maybe Optus is better but as I said I can't check). Unlike caps Three is pretty unimpressive and as usual Telstra is the worst.

how have you factored in the fact that some charge per second rather than in 30 sec blocks?

I cant really see how you would be able to, but it makes the ones like iSim that dont charge flagfall and charge low rates, billed per second, much better than your post suggests.

(an example is a 1 minute 5 sec call, with some prepaid plans you will get billed for 1 minute 5 secs whereas on others and most capped plans you will pay a hefty flagfall plus get billed for a 1min 30 sec call.)

EDIT - average length of call becomes very important too, you have only looked at total minutes rather than average length of call.