As our appetite for phone data has grown more ravenous, it has been the smaller telcos who have met the demand.

Increasingly high-tech smartphones consume more megabytes as a matter of course, making large data allowances a necessity.

On Thursday, Amaysim increased two of its already generous allowances by one whole gigabyte (GB), while also switching to per kilobyte (KB) instead of per megabyte (MB) data counting, effectively gifting even more data.

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“It’s no longer a megabyte world, it’s a gigabyte world,” Amaysim CEO Julian Ogrin told The New Daily.

“Consumers now are browsing internet, they’re streaming music and entertainment, they’re doing social media with photos and videos, they’re gaming, and they’re doing it all at the same time,” Mr Ogrin said.

The updated 4G plans put the company clearly in the lead when it comes to sheer volume of data.

“The new Amaysim plans are excellent value,” WhistleOut editor Joseph Hanlon told The New Daily.

“In terms of what you get in return, there’s nothing else like it on the market,” Mr Hanlon said.

Given how many telcos now offer unlimited calls and texts, data has become the true point of comparison, with the big players — Telstra, Optus and Vodafone — falling behind, he said.

“We have seen them [the big telcos] make their plans more generous, but they’re not willing to go that far.

“They’re not willing to go toe-to-toe.”

It may be ‘too good’

Amaysim’s data allowances may in fact be too large for many phone users.

Consumers prefer to spend no more $40 per month, WhistleOut discovered, which puts Amaysim’s 5GB plan ($44.90) and huge 7GB plan ($54.90) into the “probably more than most people like to pay” category.

“It’s still great value for money, but the 7GB plan, that’s a lot of data, and unless you know what you’re going to do with that data each month, it’s probably not going to be for you,” Mr Hanlon said.

“If you’re someone who regularly tethers your internet connection to a laptop or a tablet, then you would probably look at that and say: ‘that’s exactly what I need’.

“If you’re just a regular smartphone user, you’ll only get through half of that.”

Calculating how much data you actually need is the first step to selecting a data allowance.

As a guide, last year the average WhistleOut user searched for 1.1GB of data per month in a new plan, so you may need only slightly more than this for newer phones.

Some of the good deals

5 GB, no lock in contract, for $45 (with per KB counting)

4 GB for $45

3.5 GB for $55

3 GB for $40 (with per KB counting)

3 GB for $45

3 GB for $70 (unused data rolls over to next month)