Danny Gorog19 August 2008, 3:00 PM
Optus has started offering iPhone plans with a 6GB allowance -- but as always with Optus these days, there is a catch.
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Optus is advertising iPhone plans with huge download caps and low excess usage fees -- but it is only making them available to businesses with more than 200 employees.
The plans, known as 'Microsoft Direct Push' plans are only for use with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync email accounts and come in 3GB, 5GB and 6GB options, ranging in price from $29.99/month to $59.99/month. (See the full detail of the plans on the following page of this article.)
All plans are available on a 24 month contract, and are 'bolt-ons' to existing voice plans.
As a comparison, Vodafone offers SME customers an iPhone 3G data bolt-on for $29.95/month for only 500MB.
The newly announced Optus Timeless plans have also caused Optus to 'tweak' the top end of their iPhone capped plans. It has killed off the $89 iPhone plan which now forces customers who needed more than $550 worth of calls into the more expensive Yes 'Timeless' plans that start from $113.95.
While Optus still offer the best value iPhone 3G plans in the Australian market, it is playing 'funny buggers' by calling the cheapest 'Timeless' plan a $99 plan - they will only connect you to this plan if you also take a $14.95 Mobile Internet Pack.
While the 'Timeless' plans are good value they don't include International calls or SMS's, and the cheapest $113.95 plan doesn't include voicemail retrieval (but the $119 plan does). You'd only need to retrieve voicemails for a total of five minutes over the month for the more expensive $119 plan to be better value.
Anyone get the impression Optus has structured these plans to make it easy for the salesman in th shop to gradually guide you from the idea of signing up for a "$99" plan to ultimately paying $119 per month?
For an extra $10 Optus will provide you with a whopping 2GB of data which moves you up to the highest $129 'Timeless' plan. All 'Timeless' plans are available on both a 12 and 24 month contract.
The Optus changes come on the heels of Telstra's recent data pricing adjustment, providing more data for the same spend on the $10 and $29 data plans, though still with comparitively low allowances compared to other telcos. However, with many iPhone 3G users being surprised at the end of their first month with bills for less than 250MB data, Telstra's $29 iPhone plan with 300MB data might actually prove to be an affordable way to get a Next G iPhone.
You can see the Optus brochure for the 6GB iPhone plans on the following page.
And, as always, if you're thinking of buying an iPhone, see our constantly updated list of all the carriers' iPhone plans compared: best value Australian iPhone plans revealed.