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Telecom offers the iPhone - sort of
Tue, 14th Jul 2009
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Telecom’s director of mobile Paul Hamburger says customers connecting the latest generation iPhone 3GS to the XT Network, can take up a 24 month One Rate 180 plan for $79.95 a month and receive a $600 account credit, plus 240MB free data a month for two years.

This follows an announcement by Apple last week that its iPhone 3GS is available direct at its online store for $1149.

So how does the deal compare to the credited iPhone mobile provider Vodafone? Telecommunications Review's calculations show that Telecom's deal squeaks ahead on price over the two years - $51.20, and probably on service offering too (although this depends on whether the user is keen on texting).For this calculation we've used the 16GB iPhone 3GS model.

Telecom’s postpaid deal:

$1149 (handset from Apple) + $1918.80 (monthly $79.95 fees paid over two years) - $600 credit = $2467.80

For that users get 180 minutes free calling (additional minutes cost 44c a minute) and 240MB of data per month.

Vodafone’s postpaid deal:

$599 (handset) + $1920 (monthly $80 fee paid over two years) = $2,519.00

For that users get 120 minutes free calling (additional minutes cost 69c a minute), 600 texts, and 250MB data per month.

For prepay customers, Telecom is offering SIM card only options for the XT Network.

Hamburger says the XT Network passed the 100,000 customer mark last week.