Every provider on the Telstra network

Buy from Telstra and you get the retail network. Buy from almost anyone else on this page and you get Telstra Wholesale, which Telstra's own wholesale site describes as using "part of Telstra's mobile network".

How much smaller is that part? Telstra publishes 99.7% population coverage and 3 million square kilometres for its retail network. Telstra Wholesale publishes no percentage at all. Its page describes the footprint in words instead: all major cities, most outer-metro areas, larger regional centres, and many smaller towns and transport corridors. You will see 98.8% quoted for the wholesale network all over the comparison sites. We can't find that number on a Telstra page, so it isn't on this one either.

In a city, the gap is nothing. The missing slice is deep regional and remote Australia, which is the exact reason a lot of people want Telstra in the first place. If that's you, the difference is the whole decision.

Boost Mobile is the exception worth knowing about. Its own coverage page says its plans run on the full Telstra prepaid mobile network rather than the wholesale slice. We haven't found that claim on any other brand's site here, and ALDImobile states the opposite in plain terms: it uses the Telstra Wholesale Mobile Network.

Speed caps are the other thing you give up

Every wholesale plan is speed-capped. Telstra Wholesale lists three caps, 100Mbps, 150Mbps and 250Mbps, and says your plan's Critical Information Summary tells you which one you got.

For streaming, maps, calls and scrolling, 100Mbps is more headroom than you will ever use. I would take the cap and pocket the difference every time. The one group that shouldn't is people who actually notice peak 5G speeds, and they should buy from Telstra directly.

If you spend real time in remote Australia, start with Boost Mobile on the strength of that full-network claim, then check your actual routes on the coverage map before you hand over a card number. Coverage is the only reason to be on Telstra, so verify it for your own postcodes.

Anywhere with a decent-sized town nearby, buy on price. The table above is the answer, and it changes as prices do. What you give up against Telstra retail is a speed cap you almost certainly won't notice.

Chasing benchmark 5G speeds is the one case for paying Telstra directly. Nothing on the wholesale network gets you there.