Aussie iPhone fans still in queues!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 18 July 2008 16:43

Your IT - Mobility

Australia’s first 3G network provider, 3 Mobile, part of the global Hutchison telecommunications company, is ironically the only company NOT selling the iPhone 3G

Originally this was assumed to be the case because announcing that 3 Mobile was selling the next iPhone would have given away the game that the next iPhone was indeed a 3G model.

However, as we got closer and closer to the WWDC event, a Japanese telco and 3 Mobile in Hong Kong and Macau did announce they too would sell the new iPhone, so a 3G iPhone was widely assumed to be coming and was certainly no surprise when Steve Jobs announced it officially at the WWDC. Indeed, it was more of a relief that the iPhone was 3G at last!

As the lack of a local 3 Mobile iPhone announcement eventuated, people started wondering if they too would be selling the iPhone or not. Then 3 announced they really did want to sell the iPhone too, but couldn’t come to a deal with Apple.

This is reportedly because Apple still wants a cut from iPhone revenues, although whether this is true is unknown, at least by me.

Now it has been confirmed that Australians who have paid to officially unlock their iPhones can get them working on 3 Mobile just fine, meaning there are already iPhones on the 3 Mobile network.

But Australians who live in the major capital cities that haven’t yet purchased an iPhone are all waiting and hoping that 3 Mobile will still become an official iPhone seller, because they bring forth the possibility of cheaper voice and data plans, even cheaper than those from Optus.

Yes, there is the issue of 3 Mobile having an arrangement with Telstra that sees 2G EDGE usage charged at $1.65 per megabyte. And yes, roaming over to an EDGE network can happen in city areas too. Even worse, there is no way to “force” the iPhone to stay on 3G networks only.

But even with all these caveats, the allure of an even better iPhone deal from 3 Mobile is holding some people back from getting one now, lest 3 Mobile announce official iPhone availability in the next month or thereabouts.

So, for some, the iPhone 3G has launched, but they’re still waiting to queue another day.

Are you?