That would be roughly equivalent to the SE K800 when it launched - $0 per month on a $79 cap or $20/$22 on a $49 cap.

FWIW, I can confirm that this part is 100% correct. The carriers know exactly how many iPhones are on the network and who's using them.

it is no coincidence that every carrier is putting out almost the same press release. Surely each carrier would have loved to have said more and spruiked their services/credentials/etc, but they all basically say "we have signed an agreement with apple to sell the iphone later in the year". Steve/Apple must be timetableing each announcement to maintain interest. If that is the case i wonder why they have not yet let telstra announce - maybe it is pay back for telstra's earlier advice of sticking to the knitting.

$79 a month with a free phone is exactly what I was expecting. However with vodafone that may not buy you good data, if 3 launch with that price though I would expect 1-2gb bundled with that, which should be ample

If they also through in a 2 year apple extended warranty that would really sweeten the deal.

As for datacaps, email, IM, browsing and chat over a month might really add up. Through in googlemaps and gps, 3rd party apps, and maybe over the air podcast downloads...I am not sure if 1GB (32MBs a day) will be enough.

I for one would not buy an iPhone on a Plan, i wouldn't want to be stuck with an out-dated phone when Apple releases the Gen3 iPhone in 12 months time!

yeah, but if this gen iphone is unlocked so will the next one I assume lol, and you can always renew your contract for a further 2 years and get a new phone, or make a saving.

As for data, I agree that 1gb may not cut it, I'm hoping to wrangle 2gb one way or another. That said, I have wifi available at home and at university, so maybe I'll be ok. That said, with my hiptop it has mainly been wikipedia searches galore when I NEED (read: I'm curious) to know things, which isn't too data intensive, and I'm not really that hugely into movie sites.

Am I correct that the iphone youtube client cut the quality of the vids when they were being streamed via edge? if that remains available with 3g you could cut your youtube data usage a bit at the expense of quality

at university?

what uni are you at?
mine is running WPA2 enterprise... so it doesnt work.... (YET!!)

so needless to say, im hanging out for 1.2

If you're not watching video then 32mb is plenty, I know if I had the iPhone I'd only be using the data mainly between Home and Uni, when I'm at home I'd jump on Wi-Fi and when I'm at Uni i'd jump on WiFi.

I just hope whoever I choose has an easy way to check usage, preferably they get their act together and make some sort of widget, cos the cost of data over the cap is just crazy

iPhone has a built in counter.

well the other thing no-one has mentioned (on this page atleast ) is the 3G iPhone better have a ram spike to really have enough 3G goodness to get you through 2gig.

the current iPhone still loads pages quite slowly, even on a kickarse wifi network, cos of the tiny ram in it.

I noticed this problem also! It would pretty much freeze up until the page had fully loaded and justified etc. Smh.com.au did that quite bad for memory. Another reason why iPhone skinned websites are useful..

Three lets you check your usage, and their excess data isn't that expensive either, only $1 for 10mb. (Telstra is $1 for 4mb, Optus $1 for just under 3mb, Virgin is $1 for 60kb, Vodafone $1 for 10mb on the higher plans, 340kb on the cheapest plans)

http://forums.mactalk.com.au/47/4939...australia.html

i disagree

i think $1 for 10mb is a rip off.

just because it is cheaper than the other (rip off) merchants doesn't make it right.

if at&t can give unlimited data for $21 then aust carriers should be able to do much better than the equivalent of $100 a GB or $250 a GB in telstra's case. That's about 20 to 100 times more expensive than ADSL data. There is no justification for that.

AT&T offers unlimited data because it is a MUCH bigger company with much more customers paying so they can subsidise the heavy users with all the data the light users aren't using (but paying for). They can afford to offer unlimited data, but they don't offer any more data that our (better) telcos do, if you had unlimited data on AT&T you might not have a formal limit but they'll definately give you a call if you over used it, and it's NOT $100 a GB, that's only excess charges, Three offers 1GB for $30 a month.

The other reason our telcos don't offer unlimited data is because there is no demand for it, no one uses their phones for that much data so they just off around what people actually use and charge enough to make a profit (and pay for the HSDPA network almost no one uses it for as much as it's capable of).

As for the comparison to ADSL data, you're comparing it to EXCESS charges. Optus ( offers broadband at $25 for 400mb, MORE than Three offers for mobile broadband, and $40 for 2GB, the same as Three. For basic 8mpbs cable Telstra offers 200mb for $30 and $40 for 400MB.

The big differences between Mobile Data and Home Internet Data is the lack of cheap competition (like TPG, Internode etc.) and the lack of high usage plans. The low usage plans offered by 3 are similarly priced to Home Internet from the big Telcos, but they don't keep going and offer high usage (double digit GB) plans because there is NO DEMAND. Another reason is excess charges, mobile data tends to have excess charges whereas home internet ISPs just cap your speed so there are no 'in between' plans that cost 10c a MB.