Australia to become most competitive iPhone 3G market with Telstra joining race?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 19 June 2008 16:03

Your IT - Mobility

A newspaper report has suggested Telstra will definitely sell the iPhone come July 22, 11 days after Apple, Vodafone and Optus start retail sales. Although the report only quotes “sources” with an official Telstra spokesperson saying that “nothing’s changed”, the cat seems to be well and truly out of the bag – and it’s holding a Telstra 3G iPhone!

Well, if an article in The Australian is true, it would instantly make Australia one of the most competitive iPhone markets in the world with three major telecommunications companies all vying for the hearts and minds of customers through the iPhone with lucrative iPhone plans.

If so, it would appear that Telstra’s comments that Apple should “stick to its knitting” have been forgiven.

And it would also appear that our bet in an article called “No Telstra iPhone surprises on July 11?” that Telstra would give in before July 11 and join the iParty was correct... while we wait for Telstra to still make its official announcement.

The Australian newspaper “sources” believe that Telstra CEO, Sol Trujillo, “may make an announcement next week”, where he would no doubt wax lyrical on the iPhone 3G’s 850MHz HSDPA compatibility, thereby allowing 98.9% of Australia’s population to get 3.5G HSDPA coverage through Telstra’s Next G 850MHz network.

This would be a major coup for Telstra whose rural and regional coverage won’t be matched by either Vodafone or Optus even by the end of 2009, although both telcos promise to come close, aiming for 98% population coverage by that time.

That gives Telstra a year and a half head start on rural and regional sales, especially considering that a lot of Vodafone and Optus’ 3.5G network will consist of 900MHz 3.5G HSDPA equipment, a frequency band the existing iPhone 3G is not compatible with.

Both Vodafone and Optus do say that they will actually be mixing in a lot of 2100MHz 3.5G coverage in rural and regional areas too, but for anyone stuck in a 900MHz coverage zone, the iPhone 3G will only work as a GSM/GPRS phone, delivering treacle-like Internet data speeds compared with much faster 3.5G networks.

So what has Telstra officially said so far? Please read on to page 2.