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I was realy supprised when Vodafone released their Apple iPhone here in NZ. They expected people to firstly pay $699 for the phone and then pay at least $80 a month for 24 months. It's good to see they have recently lowered the minimum monthly fee, in fact halved it to $40 per month for the 250MB plan. The phone still costs $699 however.

I thought this was an OK deal...until recently I was talking to a friend in Sydney that is. He got his iPhone free and all he pays' is $29 per month for the 250MB plan on Optus. Plus he gets free web access whenever he is in range of an Optus wireless hotspots (all the time in Sydney). This means he never even really makes a dent in his 250MB plan as he's almost always in range. But then again what do you expect, there are many players in the Australian mobile market which means more competition and lower prices.

Which brings me to some good news for us in NZ - Telstraclear have just launched their first mobile service. However it is only currently limited to existing Telstraclear customers which is a shame as many people including myself have not had Telstraclear's fibre rolled out to them. But hopefully this is a sign of growing competition in the mobile market in NZ, which might mean more reasonable prices for iPhones and plans, but we might be on the 5G network by then....