The following article has been written by our guest author Tim Presland.

Is better to stay with the devil you know or pack up and move on like a bitter divorce? 

I’ve been asking that question now for quite awhile and in fact as I write this I’ve calculated I’ve been asking myself that same question for about 12 weeks or if you really want to know at what precise point, it was around 8:00am July 11th 2008.   You see that’s when I received Telstra’s pricing plan on the iPhone as I waited in line outside their T-Life store on Bourke street (Melbourne Australia).   Yes indeed, I was one of those impatient types that just HAD to have the iPhone and willing to get up in the wee hours of the morning and wait outside a bloody shop of all things just so I could get my greedy hands on one.   They even gave me a number of #246 to put me at ease and hang around my neck like a back stage pass.  It guaranteed I had secured an iPhone and like every other person in that line our spirits were on a high no matter how slow the line was moving we would eventually get one each.   But then Telstra handed out their price plans.  I felt like a junkie trying to score some smack but hadn’t planned on the deal being so darn high!  What was I to do?  The gear was there ready and waiting with just a few hours more in line I would achieve my technology high but at what cost?  Was I willing to deal with the biggest of telco devils “locked in” for 24 months on a plan that burned my eyes and arguably really was the worst out of all the comms suppliers?

I think it’s important though to recap on the pricing plan timeline announcements made by suppliers and how the heck I chose Telstra without even knowing the prices plans.  Eight days before the July 11th release date Optus was the 1st of the telcos to come out with balls and announce their pricing plans.  The prices weren’t really a surprise for total buy out of a unit of around $850 (+$80 unlock) and expected in the land down under for any new model of phone released despite Steve Jobs keynote speech of “double the speed half the cost”.  What was of most interest to everyone though was the amount of data and voice you could get on their pre-paid or post-paid plans.   Optus had fired the 1st shot across Telstra’s bow setting a standard so surely the BIG T would come out with a competitive price any minute now right?  Wrong!  Vodafone released their plans on their website on the 9th Oct, albeit for 5 minutes and then officially on the 10th Oct.  The plans seemed a joke but at least they announced something and where was Telstra?   Back on the 30th June Telstra actually released some ball park figures with the biggest of all selling points, well to me anyway, and that was free unlimited use of their WiFi hotspots on an iPhone plan.   FREE!? UNLIMITED!? …. hmmm … c’mon Telstra just announce your plans!   I work in the CBD and checking out where Telstra’s WiFi hotspot were located it was more than pleasing to see the CBD grid assumingly was covered with a node on just about every intersection.  The only question was just how far did these ”hotspots” cover and did the iPhone pick them up?  I took the obvious path next and that was to ask BIG T themselves so I did it in their biggest of flagship selling shops, T-Life (Bourke St Melb).   If you’ve never been to a T-Life they are big and impressive with live real time phones, computers and Foxtel systems are working for your evaluating pleasure so surely I would get the answers I’m looking for.  The sales girl was more than friendly boasting about the amount of FREE hotspots Telstra had over Optus but couldn’t answer the really important question I asked and that was of their range?  Nor could she shed any light as to their pricing plans but insisted I check back tomorrow.  I did this every day for the next 6 days until the release and not 1 sales person could shed any light but insisted I come back tomorrow.   The idea of free unlimited access to their hotspots had me hooked and I feared the worst that Telstra would be my dealer despite all the warning signs.   When I finally saw the official prices when I stood in line on 11th July I realized spending $40 for $30 worth of calls and $59 for 250mb of data AND also forking out an initial $200 (or so) probably is about the dumbest thing I could do.   Looking across the road the Optus shop had about 5 people lining up and I could get one for $80 with tons more data and voice but yet the Free WiFi held me in place …. at the very least I could do was find out more once inside.

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