| 3 cuts HSDPA prices: 1GB for $29 per month |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Monday, 16 July 2007 | |
  
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At these prices, other services start to look very ordinary indeed. Take Unwired, for example. For $29.95 per month you get a mere 300MB and at a speed of only 256/64. As your data quota climbs the comparison starts to become more favourable to Unwired: for $89.95 you get 12GB, but still at only 512/128. A more comparable to HSDPA speed of 1024/256 will cost you $109.95 for 12GB per month. But Unwired does not work anywhere except Sydney and Melbourne. I'm not sure whether the Unwired data quota is download only or upload and download: that does not seem to be spelt out on the website. The iBurst service also does not stack up very well either. Residential plans from one reseller, BigAir, offer 750MB download at 256/64 for $39.95 per month, but 500MB of that must be at off-peak times. For $99.95 you get a 1024/256 service with 2GB peak and 4GB off-peak which is getting closer to what 3 is offering for the same price. The other cellular operators are just not in the same ballpark. At the top end is Next G. For $29 per month you get a mere 70MB. If you want 1GB that will be $109 per month! Optus is not a lot better: $29.95 for 10MB, $69.95 for 50MB and $129.95 for 2GB. Vodafone is about the same, but significantly cheaper if you commit for a year or two: 1GB is $99.95 month by month and only $59.95 on a contract, with free data card included. Announcing the new plans, 3 boasted that it took a lead that others followed when it introduced capped plan voice calls to the Australian market. That was very much the case. Now, 3 says: "[we] are taking the lead in recognising that data is the next wave of competition – where consumers and businesses have been waiting for the right pricing." I am sure they are right and will be very interesting to see how all the others respond, but respond they certainly will.{moscomment} |
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