BlackBerry Storm set for December 1st launch

RIM’s long-awaited touchscreen BlackBerry Storm is set to touch down here on December 1st, with exclusive carrier Vodafone lining up five plans from $69 per month to $149 per month on a two year contract.

Each plan is promoted as included ‘unlimited email and Internet’, although that’s not quite the case: while Vodafone’s fine print specifies that ‘unlimited Internet covers using the Internet via the BlackBerry browser on the device’ it also specifically lists video streaming as one of the exceptions.

APC has confirmed with Vodafone that this covers everything from YouTube to video news reports. Streaming Internet video will cost you either 50c/MB on the pay-as-you-go rack rate, or an up-front $9.95 for 100MB using Vodafone’s ‘Internet On Your Mobile’ bolt-on data pack.

This restriction could put a serious dent in the Storm’s appeal to road warriors, especially given the device’s large lush screen and that the Storm can hurtle along at HSDPA 7.2 in keeping with Vodafone’s network upgrade.

Downloading files larger than 3MB is also on the naughty list and will incur those extra charges. However, Vodafone told APC that while the conditions specify the use of the Storm's native BlackBerry Browser for ‘unlimited Internet’, customers can load an alternative such as Opera Mini provided they set it to use the same Vodafone APN as the BlackBerry Browser to ensure that all traffic goes through the RIM gateway rather than direct onto the Internet.




A ‘free’ Storm handset is included in the plans but despite the smartphone being valued by Vodafone at $899 there’s no upfront purchase, however, and the Storm will be locked to the Vodafone network – although we’re sure the fanatical ‘CrackBerry’ community will soon find a way around that.

Vodafone’s entry-level $69 per month plan includes $340 per month of ‘talk & text’, while an extra $10 boosts the talk & text allowance to $550 per month. $99 gets you  $650 of talk & text, $119 ratchets this up to a whopping $1,000.

If you’re a really heavy-duty user, $149 per month covers you for as much as $2,000 worth of talk and text. That’s a lot of phone calls (or around 8,000 SMS messages... nice to know you could fire off an SMS every six minutes around the clock and still have enough credit to call the BlackBerry Addiction Hotline).

In case you're wondering what those capped values actually equate to in real-life usage, Vodafone tells us: "on the $69, $79 & $99 Vodafone Internet Caps the call cost is 40 cents for every 30 second block, with a 35 cent connection fee. On the $119 & $149 Vodafone Internet Caps the call cost is 35 cents for every 30 second block, with a 35 cent connection fee."

We also asked why Vodafone had apparently flipped back to including dollar value for its capped plans rather than the easier-to-understand minutes which it recently introduced. 

"In regards to moving to minutes, rather than dollars - this is still applicable, but for the Business Caps only. For the launch of the BlackBerry Storm Vodafone has created a new series of caps (Vodafone Internet Caps) which are mainly for mass market customers," says a Vodafone Australia spokesman.

"Business customers looking to upgrade to the Storm are able to use the device on Vodafone's single Business Caps launched in September. These Business Caps are based on an allocation of minutes, as opposed to cost."

Simultaneous with the Storm’s release will be the debut of the BlackBerry Application Centre, which will offer a selection of Vodafone-approved apps for over-the-air download. Vodafone promises that many of the apps will be free, while the cost of commercial apps will appear on your monthly bill.

Front and centre on the BlackBerry Application Centre will be the carrier’s own MusicStation music download service, with unlimited access to over one million tracks for $2.75 per week, and the Compass navigation service to tie into the Storm’s GPS receiver.

Pre-registration for the Storm is now open and gets you the opportunity to purchase your BlackBerry Storm online the week prior to launch, with a complimentary 8GB microSD memory card.