In Reply to: pardon my ignorance, but... posted by Bigpete3941andfamily on Thursday, 6. September 2012 at 18:04 Bali Time:
There's different providers just like here and they all have different deals.
Last trip in March I had, I think, Indosat and they had different options depending how much you would use it. I was there for 18 days so took the option of paying for unlimited access for a month, which was Rp50K - social networking was included free anyway but this gave me access to emails, online banking, news etc as often as I wanted it.
I think it was around Rp20K per week as the other option.
I got my SIM from the guy right next to the entry of the Matahari supermarket at Kuta Square, so actually inside, near the burger place and ATM downstairs. I told him what I was wanting, which was basically everything - local and international calls and sms as well as plenty of internet and he suggested which was the best card and which options were available - and also gave me the cheap code for calling home.
Last August I had a different card and was just charged as I used it and it worked out much more expensive, though I couldn't tell you the rate per MB or anything like that. I just know I was topping up a lot more often.
I did try the free wi-fi in a few places and always ended up going back to using the one I'd paid for on the phone as it was always a quicker connection.