The iPhone pre-orders went on sale Friday and as we know from earlier in the week, the iPhone 5 will support 4G speeds in Australia. The problem is that neither Telstra or Optus have restructured their plans to adequately allow for users to download more.
With faster speeds, users can accomplish more in less time. Over the course of the month, this means users will have more time to do additional tasks online using more data than ever before. Now of course users may get online mobile tasks done faster then go about their day, using exactly the same amount of data per month. Which do you think is more likely? Yep, the first.
Higher network speeds will inevitably lead to more data being used. New 4G plans for the iPhone 5 as well as any other 4G device should reflect that. In some instances the dollar spend versus the data allowance provided, actually got worse.
Telstra iPhone 5 plans (16GB model)
Optus iPhone 5 plans (16GB model)
As you can see the entry level plan for the iPhone 5 16GB model costs $67 for 1GB on Telstra or $66 for 1.5GB on Optus. Naturally there are more expensive plans that include higher data limits, but as mentioned above none of these reflect the new data use expected from the iPhone 5’s 4G speeds.
This isn’t a problem without data to predict from. There’s already a number of 4G Android phone on the market, so the network providers would be very are of the issue and have chosen to not to respond. 4G plans should start at 3-5GB and allow consumers to utilise new data hungry application to change the way we live. With these plans usage won’t increase, but the penalties for overages will.
