Danny Gorog29 July 2008, 3:06 PM
Virgin is poised to release the iPhone 3G this Friday. Read our story to see the rumoured price plans.
AustralianIT has scored the story that Optus-owned Virgin Mobile is about to be
the fourth Australian telco to wade into iPhone infested waters.
While a formal announcement hasn't been made public yet, Virgin reps have been hinting that customers wanting to get an iPhone shouldn't do anything until at least Friday, when the telco is expected to reveal its iPhone plans.
No official information is available on Virgin's website, but those who have spoken to Virgin customer reps have indicated the 8GB iPhone will be available for $0 upfront on a $70/month cap plan ($520 worth of talk and text) with 1GB of included data.
While these rates are competitive (well, better than Vodafone and Telstra), Virgin's parent company, Optus, still retains the crown of best value deal at $70-$80/month end of the market because its call rates are 5c per 30 seconds lower than Virgin's, as well as 5c cheaper on the per-call connection fee, too. For instance, $70/month from Virgin buys you 186 three minute calls, while the $79 Optus plan
gets you 224 three minute calls.
While Virgin customers will receive a total of 1GB of data on the $70/month plan, it offers a $15 bolt-on for existing mobile plans which provides of data. If the iPhone plan and the $15 bolt-on can be combined for a total of 2GB, that would create an $85 2GB iPhone plan, which would be by far the cheapest high-data-volume plan on the market.
Virgin will likely introduce other iPhone plans too, but because it is owned by Optus and uses Optus' mobile network, it's likely that Optus plans will, overall, be more competitive.
It's also unknown as to whether Virgin will offer its iPhone plans to existing first generation iPhone users, or only purchasers of the new 3G one.
We'll have more information as it's released including analysis of the plans and a full pricing breakdown.