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The set up with mobile phones in Australia is very different to the UK.  Instead of Contract and Pay-As-You-Go services the choice is PrePay or PostPay.  Postpay is similar to a contract phone in the UK, you lock yourself into a 24 month contract and usually get a free or at least heavily discounted phone handset as your reward.  The biggest difference I suppose is that instead of free minutes and/or texts it gives you a certain amount of calling credit, so for example a $20 per month contract might provide you with $400 worth of credit.  PrePay phones however differ quite significantly from the UK Pay-As-You-Go model.  When you top up (or recharge, as they like to call it) your mobile phone you will get some kind of benefit similar to an equivalent valued contract phone, for example if you top up $20 you may get $400 of calling credit.  The trouble with PrePay is that this credit will only last for a fixed period of time, usually a month, (but this might vary depending on the networks current deals) and after the month you are left with nothing not even the $20 you originally recharged the phone with.  This is very different from the UK, where whatever benefits you might get from a regular top up might expire in a month but your original top up amount will still be in tact if you haven't used it, for example you top up £20 and get 300 free texts, even if the text package expires in a month you will still have the £20 to use on calls and texts.

The other big difference between Australian and UK mobile phone services is the cost, Australian mobile phone services are much more expensive.  This is partly due to the monopoly held by the two main mobile phone networks Telstra and Optus.  Almost all the other smaller networks rely on these two networks to provide their own service with only Vodafone beginning to show signs of offering any real competition.

The reason I bring up mobile phones is because Barnadi has just decided to buy a new phone.  We both signed up to a contract with Virgin soon after we got here, both getting the same phone, a Sony Ericsson Xperia arc.  Within one month of owning the phone however Barnadi fell asleep on the tram to work and lost it.  Since then he has had to make do with his old UK handset, but since I got my pharmacy registration through and my salary doubled Barnadi decided it was time to spend it and after much contemplation decided on the latest model Sony Xperia S.  Let's just hope he can keep hold of this one.