Danny Gorog03 July 2008, 2:16 PM
Optus today became the first telco to release comprehensive iPhone 3G pricing, including plan information.
While
Telstra last week teased the media with a taste of its pricing ("
from $30 per month"),
Optus
today drew a line in the sand and released full plan information
including call rates and data caps -- one week before the iPhone goes on sale officially. Vodafone who will also sell iPhone
3G when it goes on sale Friday 11
th July hasn't released any details as yet.
As expected,
Optus
has
offered a range of different plans to suit different budgets and
data needs. The cheapest iPhone plan is a capped $19 cap plan. It comes
with 100MB data and $50 worth of calls (a good plan if you don't want to part with your existing phone but want to carry an iPhone with you as an internet access device) with an 8GB iPhone costing $21
per month over 24 months, and a 16GB iPhone costing $26 per month.
That's a total of $504 for the iPhone over 24 months.
At
the other end of the scale, there's a $179 cap plan that
includes 1GB of data and $1500 worth of calls. On the $179 plan your
phone is free over 24 months -- just as well.
Optus is also offering customers a choice of a 12 month contract on all plans, which is probably a wiser choice, given Apple released the 3G iPhone just one year after the release of the original iPhone.
But
there's a bit 'gotcha' with all the plans. If you exceed your plan’s included
monthly data allowance, excess usage charges will be charged at $0.35
per MB or part thereof. With some quick maths, that works out to $350
per GB! Ouch. On older phones that were slow and cumbersome to use for the net, excess data charges weren't a huge risk. With the iPhone, which should be pretty fast, and have a lot of handy third party applications (especially mapping apps that can really suck the data down) excess charges could rack up quickly.
All
Optus
capped plans also come with 'Yes Time' -- free 20 minute calls to other Optus mobiles after 8pm -- and the ability to call others
on the same account as you free for 5 minutes.
Non-capped plans also
range in price from a $19 per month spend to $149 per month (and much smaller dollar amounts worth of talk time of course), but come
with cheaper phones and more extensive phone options.
Optus is providing a launch incentive, giving all customers who sign up to an
Optus iPhone plan free data for the first month. (Given plans already include some data, we assume this means you can sign on to the $19 plan then go crazy with usage on the first month and it will all be free. Put another way, "the first taste is free, then it'