Randomrants

So yesterday one of the worst kept secrets in the world finally came out and Telstra announced they are going to carry the Iphone.  Big deal… 🙂

Anyway they also announced pricing… (according to news.com.au)

you are looking at anywhere from $999 to $2400 depending on phone and data plan. One sting has to be that on the $30p/m plan the initial cost is $279 not $210 which is should be given the dollar.  But if Telstra want to make a few more bucks cause people are going to buy this phone in the bucket load so be it.  Oh yeah and when Apple release another Iphone in 12 months time you are screwed… why because it is a 24 Month contract.

Telstra do have a MAJOR marketing edge over all the other carriers in Australia.  The Iphone works on the 850Mhz band and so does NextG.  Still there is no talk of just how much data you are going to get on your $30p/m plan but at a guess I am going to say not much!

There is also a lot of discussion floating around about how Telstra will pitch “Big Pond Movies/Music” when the Iphone is going to point people to Itunes.  That is going to be an interesting space to watch.

So now people can compare the Iphone as a $1000 phone to all other $1000 phones out in the market.  That is things like the n95-8gb, the HTC Diamond e.t.c.  Which of course will start to show the phone in a very different light.  The 2mg camera starts to look a bit crap when you are paying $1000 for the phone for example.

A good kicker also for Telstra is opening up the telstra wi-fi hot spots to Iphone users.  Think McDonald’s, Starbucks, most capital cities cbd’s e.t.c  That is an impressive amount of free data that you will be able to access at a lot of very convient locations.  I think that the creation of these “free” hot spots will help to start a cascade of free wifi hotspots, which will not be device specific.

This is not limited of course to the Iphone.  I for one am looking forward to the fudges that will come out so I can spoof the wi-fi to say that my Nokia is an Iphone, my R2H is an Iphone and any other device I want is an Iphone just to get free wifi.

So instead of paying 20cents per minute to access Telstra wi-fi hotspots in the future I will be on an Iphone.

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