“Australia’s second biggest telco Optus today claimed to have captured the bulk of new sales for Apple’s 3G iPhone by offering better value deals than its competitors,” Australian Associated Press reports.
“”We’re very happy with the result for Optus – we think we’ve captured by far the lion’s share of the iPhone sales because we do have the best pricing models,” Optus director of government and corporate affairs Maha Krishnapillai said in an interview,” AAP reports.
“Optus is offering the iPhone at no upfront cost on a $79 cap plan for 24 months, or for a monthly fee on cheaper plans,” AAP reports. “By contrast, Vodafone is charging customers an upfront fee for the handset, while Telstra’s call and data limits will be much lower than its rivals.”
Full article here.
I a related story, Joseph Hanlon reports for ZDNet.com.au, “A number of Australians posting on online forums have claimed to be able to use their unlocked iPhone handsets on mobile carrier Hutchison’s network.”
“Hutchison itself has not yet confirmed whether the handsets will work on its “3” network. The telco is the only major Australian mobile carrier not to offer Apple’s new handset, which launched last week locally,” Hanlon reports.
“Members of online forum MacTalk.com.au claim to have completed the leg work and have posted details of the process, as well as screenshots showing the iPhone with 3 reception and access to 3’s mobile Web portal,” Hanlon reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
Wouldn’t it be great if the iPhone was available on both AT&T;and T-Mobile networks. Something tells me AT&T;’s data pricing would be much less.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were more than one carrier in Canada who could work with the iPhone. Then I’m certain Rogers rates would be lower…
Competition is good for all.
Who’d have thought GREECE would have won Euro 2004? Portugal, Spain, Germany, Italy, all thought they were going to win, no one thought Greece stood a chance, but they played superbly throughout the tournament and won in style!
It made the European Big Teams wake up and realise they aren’t the powers they once were!!!
Soccer? We’ve stooped all the way down to soccer? What part of this site says Soccer?
Since we’re off-topic. I saw soccer in the first paragraph. A node to
Alan Turing.
What’s wrong — it’s been almost 5 posts since anyone mentioned politics?
You just did. Way to go Bluefin.
Unfortunately, not only does T-mobile not have a 3G network (Or a very limited one, their web site is not really clear about it), but the plans start at $39. Unless you have a sidekick.. which has a $29 plan.. the same as the iPhone except using EDGE instead of 3G.
Cellular networks are an expensive bit of infrastructure to build in the US. Expect to see this in your bill.
“. . . it’s been almost 5 posts since anyone mentioned politics?”
Synthetic bloodsuckers?
The only winner here its: The costumer.
Nothing better than competition.
@ Carlos
“The only winner here its: The costumer.
Nothing better than competition.”
Excellent!!
As a man who makes costumes for a living I look forward to being a winner
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@SCG, so I went to T-Mobile and looked. Its data plan was $39. Woohoo.
I couldn’t figure out what the cryptic headline to this article meant. I was thinking “Optus claims Aussie iPhone sales win WHAT?” and the second half made no sense to me at all. Maybe if I were an Aussie and had a different frame of reference, but I had to read the article to understand the headline.
I am an Aussie, and AT&T;, T-Mobile and Rogers do not exist here. What the…?
We may as well be discussing soccer or politics for the relevance it has to the original post.
Hercule Eelbait,
No one talks about soccer on this site, but politics are a different matter. So, is the leader of your country as incompetent as ours here in the U.S.?
I went with Optus because I hate Telstra and Vodafone’s plans were ridiculas compared to Optus. I just switched from 3 as they have terrible flaws in their direct debit system and can’t seem to get much right with their online stuff. Only that, but in the 2 years of being with them I’ve seen no effort to expand their 3G network whereas Optus seem to be putting in a lot of effort in this area. I’ve only been with Optus for a day now but we’ll see if they are better than 3. So far so good.
@ Sir Gill Bates
No, no, we love our new Prime Minister.
The one before him was a real prick, had his tongue right down the back of Dubya’s trousers…
I stuck with Vodafone. Yes, it is more expensive, but after previous run-ins with Optus Mobile and its general poor service reputation overall, I’d rather stay where I am. You get what you pay for.
The main trouble people have in reviewing these plans is that they way overestimate how much data they’ll actually need. I’m a heavy user and I’ve only used twenty MB in the last couple days.
If you have decent WiFi coverage, you don’t need Optus. Multi-gigabyte download limits are only really for DVD pirates and BitTorrent addicts… iPhone just doesn’t need it.
Hercule Eelbait,
Glad you were able to get rid of him. The new year can’t come soon enough here. This country is a freakin’ mess.