In October 2005 I churned from Telstra to Three.

Telstra was no longer competitive.  At the time, Telstra wouldn’t sell me a SIM card for my brand new HTC JasJar.  They wanted passports, driver licences and credit cards to set up a new mobile account (even though I was already a Telstra customer), and everything was just too hard.  ”Customer service” just wasn’t in their dictionary.

The new Three network, on the other hand, was eager to build its customer base and go the “extra mile” to make and keep people happy.  Three offered free calls to other Three subscribers, and they offered the latest 3G handsets with progressive data packs that left Telstra for dead.

Telstra launched its NextG network in October 2006, which uses the 850 MHz radio spectrum, but customer satisfaction rated poorly for a long time despite Telstra’s technically superior radio network.

Things were going swimmingly for Three.  Sales were booming, they were shoring-up their own coverage through a roaming agreement with Telstra, and they were leaving the incumbent behind in a cloud of smoke.

It’s taken five years for Telstra to wake up, but slowly it’s coming around.  The Australian telecommunications behemoth has been listening to customers, critics, journalists and industry.  The announcement of recent data plans shows that they’re starting to get serious, as well as the introduction of competitive capped plans and slashed broadband prices.

The winner?  You and me.   With the end of my Three contract fast approaching, I took a look at these new Telstra plans.  On Three, I was paying $69/month for a $650 cap limit, plus $30/month for a “Blackberry internet service”.  I also had to pay to access voicemail, and I had a paltry 200 MB data included each month.

(The “Blackberry internet service” was a handset repayment charge.  Three thinks I was using a Blackberry on its network, but I wasn’t.  I sold the Blakberry early-on and used the proceeds to fund a new HTC Dream, which was the first Android-powered handset released by HTC.)

Now I’m on a new Telstra plan.  This means:

• I’m $20 /month better off on a NextG $79 Cap Plan which includes a $750 cap limit and no handset repayment fees;
• I’ve got a nice shiny new HTC Desire; and
• I’ve got a whopping 2GB /month included.

The only down-side is that I don’t have free untimed calls to other Three subscribers.  However,  I think this is a small price to pay, especially since most people I know on Three are churning anyway.

It also means I’m on a technically superior phone network, and after nearly a week I’m yet to experience a call dropout (except yesterday afternoon when I was talking to a Three subscriber.)  I was really getting sick of hitting redial eight times in one half-hour period, trying to maintain a voice call on the Three network.  Since Three did a deal with Hutchison and formed the VHA conglomerate, and then announced in October that they were dissolving their roaming partnership with Telstra, Three’s network coverage has been on the down-and-down.  I’ve noticed a significant degradation in service on the Three network over the past few months.

For me, the decision was a no-brainer.  As the helpful Sales Rep in the T-Store said to me, “Welcome back to Telstra.”  The days of Sol Trujillo are gone, and David Thodey is now in the hot seat.  There’s no doubt that David Thodey is anxious to repair the image of a telco with a mobile network in this country second-to-none.  The decision to use Telstra should always have been a no-brainer.

android · churn · HSDPA · HTC · HTC Desire · HTC Dream · NextG · telstra · Three · VHA

Someone in the chat last night mentioned the Google Nexus One Android-powered smartphone.

It won’t be sold here, and it won’t work on Telstra’s Next G HSDPA network. See this article in The Australian for more details.

For our brethren abroad, here’s a nifty comparison chart courtesy of Tech Talk Radio’s US correspondent, Mark Diggins:

Apple's iPhone 3GS vs Google's Nexus 1

android · Apple iPhone 3GS · comparison · Google Android · Google Nexus 1 · Google Phone · HSDPA · Next G · smartphone · Tech Talk Radio · telstra