iPhone madness.

As I have posted on my blog several times I love my iPhone and I think it is truly a revolutionary device in how we will communicate going forward. However the sharp slap of reality hit me yesterday as I opened my phone bill from Telstra. What was normally about a 5-7 hundred dollar monthly bill was now a 12 hundred dollar bill.

When I went into the details of the bill Telstra has slapped me with a 580.00 dollar WAP bill. No more detail than a single line item that says WAP charges 580.00 dollars. Now the interesting thing is my iPhone keeps track of how much data I download over the Edge network which is what this WAP bill supposedly represents.

So now its time to revisit what my actual contract covers as it was supposed to include X amount of data a month. Considering my iPhone says I only downloaded 29meg of data over that period its sure seems the infamous Telstra billing machine has thrown a cog once again.

The other thing that worries me is that various people in Telstra have stated numerous times that Telstra will never allow iPhones on their network and that Telstra will never support the iPhone. Which to me only highlights the stupidity of a company that has its head shoved so far up its own arse it hasn’t seen daylight in decades. I mean who would denounce the iPhone from their network when the device encourages people to use the network and therefore pull more data, which you make money from?

However most Australians are well aware that Telstra are not the brightest company and they don’t really care what their customers want, they only want to harvest money while providing the bare minimal of service for that hard earned cash. Worse is if you run a business that requires you to deal with Telstra, your better off poking a sharp stick in both eyes and running across the busiest highway. Your more likely to survive that than have Telstra not screw you on that service at some stage or another and cost you boat loads of cash.

In other news the rumors have it that a 3G version of the iPhone is about 60 days from announcement. Considering the previous public stances Telstra has taken it will be interesting to see who Apple partner with in Australia. My bet is it will be Optus who are in the middle of turning on 3G services across various areas of Australia.