IT'S OFFICIAL: Telstra to bring iPhone to Australia on July 11th

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Danny Gorog30 June 2008, 5:00 PM

Telstra will join the iPhone party on July 11th, and they've beaten Optus and Vodafone to the punch with their pricing announcement.


Telstra has finally joined the group of official Australian iPhone sellers by announcing they'll also be bringing the iPhone to market on July 11th - and in a first (not often seen from Telstra) they've actually announced some pricing detail too.

The basic Next G iPhone 3G plans start at $30/month with an upfront cost of $279 for the 8GB model and $399 for the 16GB model. On a more expensive $80/month the 8GB iPhone is free, and on a $100/month plan the 16GB iPhone is free.

It's not clear from the press release (we've placed a call to Telstra) how much talk time, SMS or data is included with any of the plans, however Telstra has said that all plans include free Wi-Fi access at Telstra hotspots and require a 24-month contract.

While Vodafone and Optus still haven't announced iPhone pricing, Telstra's pricing announcement sets the pricing benchmark and means the other telcos won't offer the iPhone for any more than $279 and $399 (after all, which telco is ever more expensive than Telstra?) The announcement also comes as a substantial blow to Optus and Vodafone who must have been hoping to win customers away from Telstra with the lure of the iPhone.

The Telstra Next G Network is the largest in Australia and covers more than 99 percent of the population. It's also the fastest 3G network with peak network download speeds of 14.4Mbps (though this is an irrelevant number for iPhone 3G users as Apple has apparently capped the maximum HSDPA data speeds to 1.4Mbps.)

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Rick (User):

Hurry up Voda and optus!!!!! You are going to lose all of your customers to telstra!!

30 June 2008, 5:48 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

rtg159 (New user):

yeah all 5 of them!

03 July 2008, 9:50 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

shrike (User):

This seems like good news, as it will stop optus or vodafone putting some obscene price structure together, and will hopefully prompt them to lower prices to keep people off telstra. I can't wait to get one! been looking forward to this for a while now

30 June 2008, 6:39 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

jazz (New user):

does that mean free wifi @ maccas and starbucks?
this is going to be really good.
voda and optus really need to do something better if they want my business

01 July 2008, 10:54 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Dan Warne (Administrator):

AND at the airport which is a big bonus. Telstra WiFi costs heaps otherwise. But it all comes down to the overall value of the Telstra plans. Knowing Telstra there will be bugger-all download allowance and talk dollars included, with the potential of racking up big excess usage fees. That's how they structure all their other plans; I don't see why they'd do anything different for the iPhone. (They'd win hearts and minds if they did include competitive talk caps and unlimited data or at least large caps >1GB, of course...)

01 July 2008, 12:41 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

rtg159 (New user):

yeah good one danny warney. perhaps you would like telstra to pay your motgage under the plan also while they are it. you are such a charity case.

02 July 2008, 9:47 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

EMS (New user):

Danny, who do you think you will go with out of the 3 (the number, certainly not the network) carriers in Australia. You are the apparent iPhone guru and we, the apc public, want to know who you will choose?

01 July 2008, 3:38 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Hemma (User):

Hard for me to say this about Telstra but..... Damn! That is good pricing, especially considering the fact that there's going to be free Wifi in a LOT of places.... Even certain outdoor areas!

Only thing that buggers me is the fact that I'd have to stick to a bloody Telstra Contract... But then at that price, I'd just go $30 bucks worth of calls MAX and Skype the rest of the month at Starbucks.

I really wonder what Optus and Voda are going to do....

By the way, great stuff Danny.

01 July 2008, 3:43 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

David Webb (New user):

I'm looking forward to getting an iPhone. Does anyone know if 3 has made any progress with their protest? And how many of the apps will be free?

01 July 2008, 9:42 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Hemma (User):

Well, 3 in Hong Kong has also released the Pricing for Iphones too. Monthly calls range from $27 to approx $80 dollars per month on a 24 Month Contract, then on top of that there's the monthly repayments for the phone... THEN on top of that there's the Upfront costs..... It's looking extremely expensive over there.... and oh yes.... no prepaid plans.
http://iphone.three.com.hk/website/en/iplan.html
For arguments sake, the conversion rate is approx $7HKD = $1AUD

02 July 2008, 2:45 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

McBanjo (User):

That free WiFi is a really, really enticing option. Whenever I look for a WiFi network, there's a Telstra one 80% of the time. But of course, a decent 3G data plan from Optus or Vodafone would win me over any day. There's a part of me that just wouldn't join Telstra out of spite.

It's also kind of cheap that Telstra buts in and announces these plans before anyone else when they haven't got the full details either.

02 July 2008, 8:45 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Hemma (User):

Quoting McBanjo:
It's also kind of cheap that Telstra buts in and announces these plans before anyone else when they haven't got the full details either.

They haven't got full details? Really?



03 July 2008, 9:38 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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