Australia has three national mobile networks. Most plans sold here run on one of them, including plans from brands with no towers of their own. Coverage follows the network a business mobile plan is supplied from, not the brand on the bill. Since the middle of 2026 you do not have to guess which network that is. The retailer has to publish it.
You have a comparison of business mobile phone plans in front of you. Every plan promises nationwide coverage. The prices are different, and nothing on the page says what the difference buys. That is a coverage question, and it has a proper answer.
A mobile network reseller sells mobile plans on a network that somebody else built and runs.
A mobile network operator owns the towers, the spectrum and the equipment behind them. Australia has three national operators: Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom. That count is from the ACCC’s communications market report for 2024-25, published December 2025.
Everybody else buys access. Wholesale means buying network access in bulk and selling it on under your own brand. The ACCC calls those retailers mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs. In its words, they acquire wholesale mobile services to provide retail services to consumers.
The split is lopsided. At 30 June 2025, the three operators and their sub-brands held 87% of retail mobile services. Telstra had 41%, Optus 29% and TPG Telecom 17%. The remaining 13% sat with MVNOs, up from 9% four years earlier.
One detail catches people out. Some of the best known challenger names are not independent of the networks. The same report lists Belong, Felix and Amaysim as sub-brands run by the network operators themselves. A cheaper brand is sometimes a reseller, and sometimes the big network in a different jacket. The name on the bill will not tell you which.
The honest answer is to check rather than assume, and checking got much easier this year.
A coverage map is a picture of where a network predicts you will get service. Mobile network operators and the retailers that resell their networks now have to publish one on their own website. The rule is the Telecommunications (Mobile Network Coverage Maps) Industry Standard 2026, made by the ACMA in March 2026. Its deadline for publishing was 30 June 2026.
A reseller does not draw its own map. It publishes the map its network operator gave it. The standard says that map must be published with the name of the operator that provided it. So the answer to the title question sits on the retailer’s own website. The rule puts it there.
The map has to cover the 4G and 5G services that retailer supplies or offers to supply. So look for 5G on the retailer’s map, rather than on what the host network advertises to its own customers.
Three checks, and together they take five minutes.
Start on the retailer’s own website. The map has to sit in a clearly labelled section that is easy to find. You have to be able to reach it without a login or your contact details. A reseller publishes the operator’s name with the map.
Then read the map for what it is. Every map is a prediction produced by modelling, not a measurement. The standard fixes how it is drawn: 100 metre by 100 metre squares, outdoors, at ground level, for somebody standing still. It is guidance only. It does not promise you will connect, and it does not describe what happens indoors or in a vehicle. Maps are reviewed at least every three months.
Every map published under the standard uses the same labels. They are Good, Moderate, Basic and No coverage. Basic means an adequate experience with occasional disruptions. Calls are generally reliable, but some may fail or drop. Messages may be delayed, and browsing can be slow. No coverage means do not expect a service there at all. A depot showing Basic is a site where the van connects most days and fails on some of them. That is a different decision from a site showing Good.
Last, ask in writing before the contract starts. Ask which operator supplies the service, and whether the plan includes 5G on that network. Ask what the map shows at the addresses your people work from. Two plans that look identical in Melbourne can look different at a depot outside Echuca.
If coverage follows the network, the differences sit around the service rather than in the signal.
The list is short. Billing on one account instead of many. Adding or removing a service when somebody joins or leaves. Who answers when a handset or a SIM fails. A SIM is the chip or profile that ties a service to a network. The contract term, and what leaving early costs you. And whether the mobile service sits on the same bill as your phones and your internet.
The contract side has its own document. Under the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code, a provider must make a critical information summary available for every current offer. Communications Alliance, which writes the code, describes it as a short document. It sets out minimum and maximum charges, early termination charges, how to complain and other key terms. It also gives the total cost of a contract where that can be worked out. It is not where the network question is answered. The map does that job, and the summary does the money and contract job.
Whether phones, internet and IT support belong with one provider is the subject of an earlier post here. That post tells you to ask what network the plans run on. This article is that answer.
Not always, and the honest version includes when it is not.
Take a team of three, each happy on their own plan, with nobody chasing bills. They are not obviously better off on a business account. Their personal plans run on the same networks, so the coverage question is the same either way.
The case changes with size and turnover. Once somebody spends an hour a month untangling five separate bills, a single account gives that hour back.
The sharper case is ownership. If the plan belongs to the employee, so does the number, and it leaves when they do. A service on the business account stays with the business, and goes to the next person who needs it.
A fleet here means the whole set of mobile services a business runs. That covers staff handsets, tablets, vans and field devices.
Porting means moving an existing number to a new provider. The rule is stronger than most buyers expect. Under the Telecommunications Numbering Plan 2025, a provider must do everything necessary to port a portable number. That applies when the new provider asks at the customer’s request. The provider must also make sure that nothing it does, or fails to do, stops you keeping the same number.
So the numbers are not the thing holding a fleet in place. The questions worth asking are about the day it happens. What does the cutover look like across twenty services, and does it run in stages? Who owns the handsets your team carries now, and what happens to them when the plan moves? And who answers the phone on the day, when a device on a work site has no service?
Checking the network behind a plan used to mean a phone call and a patient salesperson. It is now a five-minute look at a published map with an operator’s name beside it. Do it before the contract rolls over, rather than after a bad week at a regional site.
Sixfam sells business mobile plans and data SIMs for teams working across sites and vehicles. Want a second pair of eyes on which network your current plan runs on? Call 03 9200 2800, and ask the same question of the plan you are moving to. You can also send the plan details through the contact page.
Look on the retailer’s own website for its coverage map. Since the middle of 2026 a reseller publishes that map with the name of the network operator that supplied it. You should be able to open it without signing in or leaving your details.
Not as a rule. The map a reseller publishes is the one it was given for the service it supplies. Put that map beside the operator’s own and compare them at the addresses you care about. If they differ, ask why before you sign anything.
It is a short document a provider has to publish for every offer it currently sells. It sets out the charges, the cost of a contract where that can be worked out, what leaving early costs and how to complain. Use it for the money and the contract terms, not for the network question.
Yes. Keeping your number is a rule rather than a favour, and your current provider has to do what is needed to move it. Plan the cutover anyway, because shifting twenty services takes coordination even when nothing goes wrong.
Treat it as a question rather than an assumption. A retailer’s map has to show the 4G and 5G services it supplies. Look for 5G on that map, and ask for it in writing if the plan is being sold to you on the strength of it.
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