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Mobile Carriers – Time to wake up!
With the announcement that the next revision of the iPhone firmware will allow tethering (hooking your phone up to your laptop to give your laptop internet access), it’s time Australian phone companies woke up to the fact that data on the iPhone has the same value as data on a wireless internet plan.
According to Optus’ wireless internet plans, 1 Gig of data is worth about $3 (unless that gig is over your prepaid amount of data in which case, for some reason, it’s worth $150, but that’s another argument)
To be fair, Optus gives it’s iPhone users a reasonable amount of data for free, so I’m happy with that, but now I want to buy some extra data to use this new fangled tethering technology; Oh dear;
Not only does 1 Gig of data cost $20 in this case, but thats ALL I can buy, and if I use more than that, it will cost me $350 to $500 per Gig depending on my deal with Optus.
More grumbling over the fold;
Let me say that I understand that “data used over the amount you pre paid for” should cost more; The carriers have to pay for enough back end technology to support their customer base, and this system allows them to have a good idea how much data they will need to serve; But charging anywhere from 1750% to 16000% more seems beyond a joke.
The other point here is that I am an Optus customer, so I am picking on them, but all the carriers pull these stunts with pricing.
It’s time the mobile carriers woke up and starting providing the kinds of services to Australians that we need, which in these trouble times would be a shot in the arm to business and help kick start the recovery.
What do you think? Leave a comment!
