Vodafone officially announces Australian iPhone prices - leak was accurate

Adam Turner
Thursday, 10 July 2008 08:12

Your IT - Mobility

Optus and Vodafone are offering iPhone users between 100MB and 1GB of data per month, but Telstra is yet to release such details.

Generous data plans are considered crucial for iPhone users as most of its advanced features rely on internet access, while the iPhone's ease of use means that owners are more likely to want to use such features. Telstra's existing data offerings aren't very encouraging. A typical $100 NextG phone plan offers $90 of voice calls and $10 of data at a horrendous $2 a MB, which is only 5MB of data a month. The new iPhone is likely to consume almost that amount of data in the background before customers even use any of the advanced features.

Telstra's PR spokesman has indicated that Telstra may not release details of data plans until as late as Friday morning, which means customers may not know what they're signing up for until they actually get to the counter. Vodafone's Australian iPhone plans reduce the pressure on Telstra to improve its data offering.

Telstra also has an advantage over its rivals in that the Next G network is the only Australian mobile phone network that will offer iPhone users fast download speeds throughout the country. Optus and Vodafone's high-speed coverage will soon come close to that offered by Telstra's Next G, but the national Next G network operates in the 850MHz frequency band while Optus and Vodafone use 2100MHz in the cities and 900MHz in regional areas. The new iPhone 3G only supports 850, 1900 and 2100MHz which means, outside the cities, Optus and Vodafone users won't be able to use 3G and will fall back on painfully slow, dial-up-like GPRS data speeds. There is also speculation that iPhones on Next G may not offer full data speeds in regional areas .

FIRST iPHONE 3G PICS: iPhone 3G v iPhone v iPod touch

OPINION: Telstra iPhone data plans - expect nothing and you won't be disappointed