Does anyone have any idea what this: http://www.telstra.com.au/nextgnetwork/pdf/rebate.pdf is for?? Are Telstra actually going to give me money for something, and if so what?

Not sure if it's related, but there was one person who was credited an iPhone instead of paying for one - instead of being charged $399, he was sent for $399 instead!

But that could be related to if you bring an iPhone to Telstra (that you didn't buy from them) then they credit the purchase amount back onto your next bill, or something.

This is not correct. The data allowance included with iPhone plans is taken at the pay-as-you-go rate, which is $2/MB. It has been like this before 01/08/08 and still is.
(source: Telstra support)

Hence, $10 worth of data in an iPhone plan will give you 5MB. Therefore, you pretty much *must* have a browsing pack to bring down the excess use charge. I reckon the best bet would be the $29 pack, which includes 300MB and comes with the (lowest available) excess use charge of $0.25/MB. With the $10 pack the excess use charge is still $0.50/MB.

BTW, higher usage browsing packs still exist ($89 for 1GB, and $119 for 3GB), but the $59 for 200MB pack (that I'm on) has been scrapped. I'm obviously moving to the $29 pack now...

Cheers
Steffen.

Steffen. Only problem I have trouble understanding is that if you don't go onto excess use charges you pay more per MB on the $29 pack than the $10 pack.
On the $29 pack you pay nearly three times as much as the $10 for only twice as much data.

Is this correct the way I'm interpreting it?

Actually it is - but I don't think you quite understood the subtlety of the difference.

The 'per MB' rate they applied to the included data without a data pack was $2/MB. When you bolted on a data pack, they applied the more favourable per MB rate from that data pack - hence the strange allowances of 93MB and 107MB (check the old pages if you like).

To clarify - you're right that this has nothing to do with the excess data rate applied, or the pay as you go rate applied to the plans without a data pack, which all remain unchanged (in principle, if not amount).

Now, they still apply the pay as you go rate to plans without a data pack, but apply the excess usage rate for the data pack to the included data instead of the per MB rate (which would of course be far more favourable to the customer).

Is that so?

See, this is not the case, according to Telstra. The data included in iPhone plans is always charged at the pay-as-you-rate, regardless of whether or not you buy a browsing pack. Hence, the $10 included data do not suddenly turn into something valuable when you get a browsing pack.

I was told this by the Telstra person at the Apple store when I bought an iPhone for my wife, and it was confirmed to me over the phone. I had originally assumed that the data included with iPhone plans was taken at whatever excess use charge your browsing pack dictates. I was told that this isn't the case.

Cheers
Steffen.

Yes, that's correct as far as I can see. The megabyte costs 6.7 cents with the $10 browsing pack and 9.7 cents with the $29 pack. The break even (given the $0.50/MB excess use charge on the $10 pack) would be at 188MB of usage. Go beyond that and you'll pay more than $29 for the $10 pack.

If you can confidently say that you are not going to exceed that then the $10 pack seems like the way to. And even if you go beyond 188MB, the penalty isn't nearly as stiff as with some other carrier's plans. Still, at 200MB usage for example you'd pay $35 for your $10 pack, at 250MB you'd pay $60 and at 300MB it would be $85.

With the $29 browsing pack excess charges grow at only half that rate.

Cheers
Steffen.

Nicely described dotnet. Thanks.

Deleted

Wow, Telstra have changed their plans from appallingly bad, to pretty bad.

Can anyone actually think of another good or service that actually starts to get more expensive as the quantity being purchased increases??

If Virgin can make it possible to offer a phone plan for $100 with 5GB (!) of data, surely Telstra could manage to offer a fifth of that, or even a tenth!

Besides Tassie what other areas does Telstra have supreme coverage over other carriers?

Actually when I fist saw them I thought it must have been a mistake.
I wonder who was the overpaid individual that did the maths on that!

It may seem like that to the casual observer, but in reality it is a lot more complex. There's this built-in nonlinearity (through the decreasing excess use charge) that makes it hard to gauge the actual cost and the most suitable plan unless you know your usage beforehand.

There are different sales techniques at work with different carriers. Optus chooses to dazzle customers with a page covered in numbers and built-in complications (like the varying phone down-payments), Telstra keeps it simple at the surface and reveals complexity at closer inspection

Virgin probably feel reassured by the fact that no Virgin iPhone user could possibly rack up this much usage (or even a fifth of it), unless they chain themselves to an Optus tower for a month. And even that doesn't seem to work always (as discussed in another thread). For all we know, they could offer 100GB for $100. Not that it means anything, really...

Cheers
Steffen.

Besides Tassie what other areas does Telstra have supreme coverage over other carriers?[/quote]

Having just spent 6 months in the NT, I can tell you that you'd much prefer to be on NextG rather than optus....and don't talk about Vodafone...they barely get any 3G coverage up there

In central victoria only optus have any 3G coverage besides Telstra and even optus only covers Bendigo and Ballarat. Telstra cover the entire region. Same thing with the Phillip Island area.

Most of Australia actually.

I spent 6 months travelling around oz and made sure we had a nextg phone and bigpond wireless because otherwise we would have been without communication a lot of the time.