Optus enters iPhone race - BizTech - Technology - smh.com.au
Well it looks like the carrier for the iPhone in Australia isn't fixed in concrete yet...
[From Optus enters iPhone race - BizTech - Technology - smh.com.au]
Thanks to the "open" telecommunications market here it was somewhat of a foregone conclusion that Telstra would be the carrier even though they initially told Apple to "stick to your knitting". Especially after Sol Trujillo (our imported CEO of the largest national carrier) gently recanted and said "The answer is simple: yes we'd be interested and we're exploring that option". (see here also)
Of course this means a 3G iPhone is in the works (and according to various people due in Australia in the April/May timeframe). The advent of a 3G iPhone has already been leaked, although leaked might be a mis-characterisation for a direct statement by AT&T's Randal Stephenson.
The advent of Optus is interesting in two ways:
- Telstra is big on arrogance, it's possibly the most arrogant consumer facing company in Australia. So, coming head to head with the personality driven Apple of the 21st Century is a sure recipe for head butting and lots of it, after all Sol is not exactly the retiring wall flower type either.
- Optus is in much bigger need to kick a goal than Telstra and could easily be willing to concede more dollars than Telstra is. They also used be, in days gone by, an entirely Mac house - I'm not sure of the status these days but I don't think Mac's dominate there anymore.
Unfortunately, I don't think its a win-win situation for the Australian consumer no matter which one of these carriers gets the iPhone. Firstly the whole Optus setup is really underpowered in terms of 3G coverage - step outside of the major metro's or off one of the national highways and signal quality drops off pretty quickly. Also in the sense of Optus implementing the software changes to their network that visual voicemail will require resources might be a little thin on the ground (sure they can do it but how long will it take and how well will they do it?). After all it's unlikely that AT&T is handing out the network side software to telco's around the world...
If Telstra take the iPhone on board its likely to be fraught with problems that can only occur in a massive-I-don't-give-a-shit corporation, much like the problems with the Blackberry network rollout, or just ignoring problem products in the market. Then there's the whole cost of using Telstra - put it this way compared to the rest of the world our phone plans are pretty expensive on Telstra - compared to Optus, Virgin, etc they have a way to go - hopefully its cheaper than the Blackberry plans [PDF] which range between $49.95 and $54.94 for the Email Only plans with voice extra.
Like I said can't really see a win-win here - unless Apple can squeeze a decently priced "Unlimited" plan out of Telstra for their end users they risk coming up short in their unit sales much like they have in the UK. Part of the problem in the UK revolved around the meaning of "unlimited" apparently it doesn't actually mean unlimited...Of course having said all of this, it'll be like the MBA in this house the orders will go in as soon as the pre-order website goes up. Just keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have to take out a mortgage to afford the data plan or end up with a carrier that doesn't reach beyond the metro boundary...
