Another reason why Telstra sucks

January 3, 2006

I’ve now been with Telstra mobile for three months (or billing periods, as I’m sure they refer to it). The first two months, I had a bill of $30, my service fee. Data wasn’t charged during this time. They don’t list data charges on the website. This month I receive my bill which happily included $58.43 worth of data charges, including one $13.37 charge for a measly 598kb of data. Total of the bill: $95.26, up >200% on previous months. While I’ve been impressed by the increase in speed since the introduction of WAP, the charges are ridiculous. The mobile connectivity options today are amazing (most of the charges are me using Gmail via ProfiMail). Why do telcos insist on crippling customers by having rather astounding data rates. It’s possible to use my phone as a bluetooth modem. Such a cool idea, but can you imagine the price of a couple of minutes surfing this way?

I don’t know what the rates are in the US and EU, but surely they are not as ridiculous as they are here. So far, Telstra is proving to be every bit the money-grubbing, progress-impeding company that they are portrayed as. Don’t even get me started on broadband in this country. Chances that Telstra are running a Technorati search on “Telstra sucks“? Less than zero.

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