Yet another iphone related Age article...
Watchdog sniffs at mobile excess usage fees - iPhone Insider - Digital Life

Hm, I'm not sure they can lump Optus, Telstra and Vodafone all into the same basket, seems a bit unfair.

All 3 give you very little data and charge alot for it. All 3 have high excess usage fees. All 3 make up excuses as to why they do the first 2 and none of them are believable. They definitely deserve to be put in the same basket.

Well isn't Virgin dataplan 1.5c per kb over so that like $15 per mb?

Now that is excessive... But $15 for 1gb is nice

i have 250mb limit, and i browse the net everyday on my iphone thru optus and im sitting around 90 mbs, if you dont go crazy on youtube or porn sites you should be good
i think it would be hard to do 100mb's per day if you get a 3Gb plan

there's a 3gb plan?

its a example if there was one

i think we are going to hear a ton of stories come August 13th... houses lost, credit histories ruined, 2nd jobs taken up....

I am being ultra conservative in my usage as i am a gen 1 iphone owner so am used to it sucking up data. But so many people out there wont even think how much weather, Stocks, Your Tube, Maps or any other programs are going to use. And the telcos dont have a clue.... or do they?? Smart like a Falcon i say!!

You mean, you pay $15 for the first gigabyte, and then $15 per MB beyond that? This is grotesque, and probably warrants an ACCC warning. It would mean that overdrawing your data plan by just 1% (100MB) will add 10 times the cost of the plan to your bill. You can almost be certain that this is what they're waiting for - luring unsuspecting customers with "cheap" plans and counting on them not keeping a close eye on their usage.

With a penalty like that, who would ever dare to get close to the usage they're entitled to?

Cheers
Steffen.

See I'm a 1st gen iPhone user as well, and I was lucky to get through 150Mb per month, and that was checking my work and two personal email accounts every 15mins, web browsing etc.

I'm not a big YouTube user so that data-use blackhole doesn't effect me.

Regards,
Shane.

Yeah its devious alright.

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@scritch Yeah I am all new to the who browsing on my mobile and data plan thing. sure I have had smartphones in the past but the cost of data has always been prohibitive, so I have limited all my surfing to wifi only.

I may end up disabling 3G and just running edge normally and only switching to 3G specifically for web browsing.

Most MacTalkers know all about shifty data charges by the telcos, excess costs, and all that stuff. But we're far from the 'average user'. So I think the more articles like this out there the better. Even if they're completely one-sided and don't tell the whole truth ('cause honestly, I think Optus did very well with the iPhone plans), at least it brings to light some of the issues that many consumers don't know about (and yeah, I think a lot of people should just do their research better before jumping headfirst into a 24 month contract, but whatever. It's amazing how many people don't even think twice).

I have been thinking about excessive charges and my first reaction was price gouging.

But the more I think about it the more I realise that it really isn't an advantage for the Telcos to have their customers run up massive bills. If anything they would be better off to ensure their customers don't get into debt.

Chasing debt and customer dissatisfaction is not a good business model.

The more I think about it, the more I am starting to believe that the obscene prices are there to stop you from using the service. Which to me says that the Telcos do not have have that much confidence in their networks.

If we can't ever get unlimited data in australia, perhaps they should seriously consider either disconnecting the data once it meets the quota per month, or perhaps offer more?

If you are careful with what you check on the web, and keep an eye on the data usage in preferences, you should be okay folks..

It's bad, but let's not get carried away - 100/1000 * 100 = 10 per cent.

So exceed by 10 per cent, you pay 10 times more. Still ridiculous, but not crazy.

But it all comes back to the one cardinal rule of mobile phone data usage - no average user will ever hit 1GB, and will struggle to get to 300MB.

I really wish Fairfax's brigade of wolf-crying journos would actually bother to do some empirical research on the matter before being so shrill about the consequences.

No matter which way I look at it - this seems irrefutable

I'd say dishonest, bordering on deceptive. How many average users will there be among iPhone buyers? Most are gadget freaks, and a lot of those probably media leeching whores (in the kindest meaning of the term ). It remains to be seen how many of them will feel safe at 800MB the day before month end, only to find out that the usage meter was lagging and their bill will be made out for a cool 1.2GB

Not trying to defend Telstra prices, but this does make them appear in a different light. This month for example I'm paying $59 for a measly 200MB ($0.295 per MB), but any excess usage will be charged at $0.25/MB.

I wonder who will rake in more money at the end of the day, Telstra with a $59/200MB plan or Virgin with a $15/1GB plan...

Cheers
Steffen.