Telstra removes iPhone unlock fee, now free!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 15 October 2010 21:06

Your IT - Mobility

In a sign that Telstra might actually be a little serious this time about the noises it repeats every few years about 'finally' wanting to truly get 'customer service right', Telstra has announced it is dropping its previously expensive $150 unlock charge to the much wallet-friendlier price of $0.

Telstra removing an expensive iPhone unlock fee - is it a miracle, or a sign that Telstra has some other dastardly plan afoot and is just trying to temporarily make us look in the iPhone's direction?

With Telstra, the 800-pound telcorilla that has crashed and crashed through the Australian telecommunications jungle, anything is still possible, especially with its $11 billion dollar NBN deal with the Federal Government still potentially up in the air, despite the support of the independents and Green candidate.

That's because calls for a cost-benefit analysis of the NBN just won't go away, seeing as it is a pretty standard and basic business requirement for investments, especially one of the NBN's scale, and with all the talk of additional costs to bring the fibre and the optical network terminal (ONT) up to your house being up to $3b extra over the original $43 figure, and it's no wonder questions continue being asked.

As former Australian Federal Treasurer Peter Costello pointed out in the Sydney Morning Herald on October 13, the B in NBN could easily stand for boondoggle, something I pointed out myself earlier this year.

There's also the renewed threat of the NFN, or National Filtering Network, with Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, recently supporting the notion of government controlled censorship under the predictable guise of protecting the children, granting that right to government and abdicating parents of the responsibility.

Whatever cunning plans Telstra has beyond its promise of increasing market share, becoming more competitive and promising again to dramatically overhaul customer service, and whatever the final outcome of the NBN, be it Labor's current plan or some more sensible plan that opens up competition, speeds and choice without creating the National Bankruptcy Network, it's always the little things that count. Well, after the big things have been taken care of, of course.

In this case, one of the big things is iPhone 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4 ownership, in this case through Telstra, whether through an 'outright' purchase at an Apple Store, or through a Telstra post-paid contract, along with the provision of the Next G voice and data plan.

The little thing in this case is being able to take that same iPhone and using it overseas with a local microSIM without having to pay a $150 unlock fee/toll/ownership tax/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, whether you purchased that phone outright from Telstra or not.

And, so, Telstra has removed the fee. This is more than two years after an iTWire reader by the name of 'mac user' wrote in and explained how he'd unexpectedly been able to get a free unlock from Telstra, a loophole Telstra closed fast!

All the details of the now official iPhone unlock fee removal are on page two, please read on!