Telstra ruins the iPhone

It could have been so good. The biggest 3G network in Australia that
works in most of the large towns and bigger rural communities, together
with the iPhone. Distance could have been beaten for once and for all by
technology. Everybody would have wanted one. I wanted one.

But alas we return to the subject of Telstra and their unfair monopoly
in Australia.

Lets have a look at the comparison between the UK where O2 might have a
monopoly on the iPhone itself, but not on the phone networks.

In the UK O2 offer all their plans on an 18 Month contract, 18 months is
a long time in the world of computers.

Telstra only offer 2 year contracts, the first example of their
evil-because-its-easy business practices.

In the UK O2 offer the iphone 3G on many different plans ranging from
30pounds a month upwards. They all include unlimited free data, after
all lets face it, there is NO POINT having an iPhone unless you can
connect to the internet and actually use it for what it was designed for.

As an example on the 35 pound per month plan with O2 in the UK you get ,
unlimited 3G data, unlimited WIFI data through the biggest UK network
with over 9500 hot spots, 600 minutes and 500 texts. Not a bad deal.

In Australia where Telstra have a monopoly you can go on a $350 a month
plan and pay over $8400 for your iPhone and STILL have to pay for your
data usage at the pay as you go rate of $2 per megabyte after you have
used the free $15 of data included. Calls cost much more than in the UK
too and you get less of them.

Yes that's right folks, Telstra have created a world where you can pay
$350 a month for an iPhone and get 7MB of included data usage, not even
enough to download one email with a couple of quality photos each month.

Telstra sucks. Telstra has a monopoly. The government and the ACCC are
failing the people of Australia by allowing this to continue.