As I posted late last night – Vodafone had not announced their pricing. They did – then retracted it. This is a major factor for an IT and tech geek who currently uses Vodafone. I’m now seriously thinking of taking my business to Telstra (I use them for Cable and Internet already – so…?!). I have partially ruled Optus out due to their lack of non-metro coverage and decisions to expand their 3G using 900Mhz technologies.

I tried to pre-register with Telstra. They still have sent me as much as Vodafone. Nothing. So I decide that pre-registering is a waste of time. Off to the stores I went:

• A Melbourne CBD Vodafone store – “Sorry we don’t have any information yet”
• A Melbourne CBD Optus Store – “I can’t find the flyers so I don’t know the data rates, but I think you get the 16GB for $2 a month on the $80 cap”
• Telstra’s T-Life Melbourne store – “There is no info in store, come back Friday”

The Telstra bloke actually spent most of the subsequent three or so minutes expanding on my coverage comment. He mentioned “3.5G” at least 5 times, even when I said that the iPhone is a 3G device; not specifically catered to the NextG higher speeds (14Mbps).

So it is left up to me to ignore all the bally-hoo and just make a decision.

As Koops tells me: “Just buy one from elsewhere and use your computer data card to tether it via wifi”. Maybe that will be the way I go too. It’s either going to be a Friday morning purchase, or stick with my old nokia for another couple of months.

Bottom line, Vodafone has may have (see late minute official pricing) lost a customer – They missed the opportunity to NOT think of this as just another phone.