Technology news and Jobs 
Fuzzy Logic 3 Mobile slices prices, then Telstra launches $0 iPhone attack!
Fuzzy Logic 3 Mobile slices prices, then Telstra launches $0 iPhone attack! | 3 Mobile slices prices, then Telstra launches $0 iPhone attack! |
|
| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Wednesday, 02 July 2008 | |
|
Page 1 of 4   
Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
First, 3 Mobile Australia, the company that wants the iPhone 3G but admits that no deal has yet been signed, announces that it’s dropping cap prices (although 3 Mobile calls it adding value), saying its $69 cap offers better value that the $79 caps from Telstra, Vodafone and Optus. 3 Mobile also says it’s dropping the cost of certain phones, for example changing the $34 per month cost of the Nokia N95 8GB to $0 per month on the $49 monthly cap, as it prepares to withstand the iPhone 3G onslaught. Then, Australia’s dominant telco, Telstra, drops the predicted iPhone bomb a few hours later, divulging the first Australian iPhone pricing details, including a $0 iPhone 3G plan for both the 8 and 16GB models, and plans where the 8GB iPhone can be purchased for AUD $279 and the 16GB for $399. Unfortunately, Telstra has for now omitted the crucial detail of the number of megabytes, and preferably gigabytes, that it will include with each plan. A big data plan is something that’s vital to take full advantage of the iPhone without worrying about data bill shock, especially on the excellent but normally expensive Telstra Next G network. No doubt Telstra’s move was a cleverly strategic one to counter 3 Mobile’s price drop and focus all the attention on itself, but also to shake up Vodafone and Optus whose intention to officially sell the iPhone on July 11 has been well known, but without the vital element of voice and data plan costs, along with the proposed costs of the iPhone itself. Telstra will also now offer the HTC Touch Diamond “iPhone killer” along with the iPhone itself – it’ll be interesting to see Touch Diamond sales on the $80 per month plan, which makes the HTC Touch a $0 phone, too, against the iPhone 3G sales, from Telstra. This is then followed by the release of iPhone 3G prices, and costs for voice and data from 3 Mobile Hong Kong, which appear to be among the cheapest iPhone 3G plans in the world, although occurring in one of the world’s most competitive mobile phone markets and in a market when consumers also pay to receive calls, and not just make them. And then, after all of this, we get the rather shocking news that the 3G iPhone, as it currently stands, seemingly won’t qualify for Telstra’s “Blue Tick” program certifying best performance in rural and regional Australia without some kind of external antenna, with the rather serious problem of the iPhone having no external antenna socket. So, just how might Telstra fix this problem, given that Telstra’s consumer group MD, David Moffatt, publicly boasted that “more Australians will enjoy the iPhone 3G experience in even more places”? Is Moffatt’s statement misleading, or the truth – and what gizmo have I discovered that might boost the iPhone 3G’s antenna? Continued on page 2... |
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
