XKCD Big sea

imgs.xkcd.com

Ha!

(And this marks the first post on jurgen dot ca where I’m using the sni.ps content attribution service. Hope it works!)

As much as I’ve whined about Optus’ paltry data plans, they’re the best things going in this, the arse end of the world. Much of the buying public seems to agree. Vodafone and Telstra shops next door to the Optus shop I was at were pretty empty.

I am now an Optus customer. So far, I’ve been with Vodafone, AAPT, Vodafone again and now Optus. I also have a 3 MobileBroadband card.

I started a contract for a 16gb iPhone Friday afternoon. I would have been able to walk away with an 8gb model if I wanted to. The 16gb models sold out instantly in most Optus stores. A small number of stores still had 8gb models, but 16gb seemed to be sold out pretty much everywhere.

Big upside for Optus here. I think they’re gaining a lot of new activations because of their relatively aggressive iPhone plan pricing. In just talking with people in the shops, more than half of the people getting iPhones with Optus are churning from another provider. What’s more, their plans have a nice deal where you’re allowed free 5-minute calls to other mobile numbers within the same account. Because of this, I’m bringing the other two mobiles in my family along with us – they were prepaid on Vodafone, and now they will be on Optus caps. I don’t think I’m unique in this regard either.

As an aside, I learnt that a 3G USIM is backwards compatible with 2G phones. I put the new Optus USIM into my old Siemens S55, and it’s working fine. Reception in my house is better than Vodafone was (no surprise there).

Gizmondo Australia has some leaked Vodafone pricing and it’s horrible. Makes Optus look good.

How can you offer 5gb of data for $39 and charge more than four times that when the data is coming from a phone? As much as I ridiculed Optus, they might have won themselves a new customer.

Unless Telstra’s plans are reasonably priced.

(Hahahaha!)

I see you’ve acquired a sense of humour! How wonderful. The hilarious email you sent out this arvo with your iPhone pricing is one of the best pieces of humour writing I’ve had the pleasure of reading in recent memory. Tears – actual tears! – streamed down my face. I could scarcely breathe for laughing so hard. Rogers recent iPhone packages in Canada were greeted with great peals of laughter, and Optus, here in Australia, have risen to the challenge admirably. Let’s read together my favourite passage:

And the great news is you’ll be able to get an 8G iPhone 3G from Optus for $0 on a $79 Cap plan over 24 months which provides $550 of calls, text and more, plus a whopping 700MB of included mobile data for Mobile Internet Browsing.

700MB is “whopping”? Is this 1990? Are you AOL?

At least Optus has announced their plans. Telstra mumbled something vague a few days ago, and Vodafone seems to have gone to sleep.