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iPhone – Vodafone Australia leaves it too late

July 9, 2008 at 02:24 · Filed under iphone

If Vodafone Australia don’t release their iPhone pricing/data or respond to my Pre-registration ASAP (and I mean by midday Wednesday only 48 hours before launch) I’m going to unfortunately have to go elsewhere.

What is the point of their pre-registration when:

  • One hears nothing back from it except a “Watch your inbox”
  • One goes into a Central Melbourne Vodafone shop and they say “We are not owned by Vodafone so don’t know about pre-registration or when the pricing is available”
  • One rings the Vodafone Connect number and can NOT find any option – menu – or area that will answer your iPhone questions
  • Optus and Vodafone 3G offerings outside Metro areas will use 900Mhz – WTF Carriers!

In fact their automated Phone system hung up on me twice and I gave up calling.

It looks like I’m going to have to go Telstra or Optus. Hmmmm. It may have to be Telstra since:

  • they have Nationwide 3G coverage using 850Mhz – iPhone supported
  • They will offer free WiFi access at their hotspots (aka any McDonalds)
  • It’s that easy to port my mobile numbers away from Vodafone

I know Telstra have yet to list their data usage pricing; but it can’t be as any worse than their previous offerings.

I will take this moment – for the first time – to note here that although I’m not a Telstra employee I currently work on their IT Transformation. So it may be in my best interest to “show company colours” around the office – and have my phone continue to work as I travel the lifts of the many Melbourne buildings.

Come on Vodafone – you will be losing a customer and $2000 a year in money spent on your services. As other bloggers and news outlets have mentioned, they are cutting it too close.

Ben Jackson said,

July 10, 2008 @ 17:51

Get this though – I rang Telstra to get info, some bozo got on saying he hadn’t had the ‘training’ yet, asked around, (when I asked about data rates with Telstra), came back and said “the iPhone isn’t really suited to email and web browsing, you’re better to go with an imate or htc [insert some crap phone here]”…!!!!

I paused, gobsmacked, and said, “Um, I really don’t think you or anyone you’ve asked knows what they’re talking about”.

He hung up on me straight away. Beep beep beep…!

WOW!

lantrix said,

July 10, 2008 @ 22:04

Man they have it all wrong.. Safari on the iPhone is the ultimate mobile web browser that is … um… not for the mobile web!
You are not wrong though. A colleague of mine rang them too, and they said they would be getting Training on Friday – AFTER THE LAUNCH. Way to sell phones Telstra.

I got the same in their T-Life store (see newer post) and all the rep went on about was 3.5Generation phone networks; even after I did just what you did and said “Aaaah the iPhone is not a 3.5G/NextG specific phone. It’s a 3G device” They just dont know.. “Come back Friday” he says….

So despite this post thinking about Telstra, now I see that they will probably only include 5 stinkin’ Mega Bytes, I’m seriously thinking of not getting an iPhone for the foreseeable future. I’ll replace my broken Nokia with another one, and get a data card (3 or 5GB plan) for my Powerbook 🙂

Thanks for commenting Ben.

Tech Debug said,

September 1, 2008 @ 10:58

iPhone choices…

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 t…

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