When searching for the best SIM-only plans, we’d hazard a guess that the most important metric to influence your decision is the amount of included data. Below the headline figure of included data, however, is an important little optional feature that often goes unnoticed – whether you can roll your unused gigs over into the next month. Known as 'data banking', it could be your answer to lowering your monthly fee without any noticeable impact on your usage or service’s inclusions.
On postpaid plans, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has found the average Australian uses 15.9GB of data each month on the likes of social media scrolling, photo uploading and general web browsing. If you’re on a postpaid SIM plan, it could certainly be worth checking your monthly statements to see how much data you use versus what you’re paying for. You may find you use a lot less than you expect – and could therefore lower your monthly costs by switching to a cheaper mobile plan.
In the case of some mobile carriers, paying less per month on your SIM plan doesn’t necessarily mean you have to lower the amount of data you can use, and it’s all thanks to data banking.
What is data banking?
You may already be very familiar with the term data banking or data rollover – and it’s relatively self-explanatory – but for the uninitiated, data banking is simply the act of being able to keep and accumulate any unused data from one month of service. Unused data is compiled with the fresh allowance of data in the next month, and unused data from the second month rolls into the third and so on.
How can data banking benefit me?
If you use some but not all of your included monthly data, then there could be a more financially friendly SIM plan for you out there. And if there’s a month you need more data than you would normally use, you’ll have it, because it will be there in your data bank.
Best SIM-only plans with data banking
So, which SIM-only plans have the best data banking deals? We’ve sifted through dozens of options to pick out our favourites and the ones we think are most worth your money. We'd note that none of the plans below come directly from the big three telcos of Telstra, Optus or Vodafone – these larger carriers simply don't offer it. Instead, they come from smaller carriers – or mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) – which buy access to the networks of the big three and resell it, usually at a cheaper cost.
There can be some limitations with going down this route, it should be known, such as capped download and upload speeds. But in return, you get broad access to the respective telco’s network and, of course, data banking.
