Devices like the iPhone bring the kind of interface that make internet usage workable, however prices in Australia are still too high for it to be viable for most people.

I have many customers that hooked up their 3G service and without understanding the usage charges, were billed massive amounts because their phone was checking email every 2 minutes over the billing period.

It reminds me of the early days of broadband where customers are being gouged by ISP's because they were on low data plans and were unaware how their internet usage translated to data usage.

I currently don't know how to use the 3g services becuase I can't get them. Funny thing is, im inner north Canberra and everyone in my area is having the same problem. No Internet and No 3g. Thanks Telstra!

If Telstra slashed the price of their data plan (I mean make it ubercheap) it might actually be worth the cost.
ATM its just too high to use on a daily, even weekly basis. It's not worth it when you're only an hour wait away from your pc.
I only use it as a last resort maybe 2-3 times a month if i cant get to my pc and i need to google, ebay or check my email asap.

I live outside 3G coverage (even though I live in Ballarat about an hour from Melbourne and home to nearly 100,000 people...) so I can't use 3G except when I'm in Melbourne...

You got it in one, I cant justify the expense...
I download weather, news, games etc to my pda for free overnight for the day ahead.. As for streaming media.. too busy reading news / pod/vod casts..

So many people I talk to are unaware of how data services are charged on their plan, so they just avoid them altogether. They have this vague idea that 'internet on phone = expensive' so most people just ignore it so they aren't stung with a nasty bill at the end of the month.

I think Australian carriers have hurt themselves in the long run by initially overcharging for a data services (charge by the kB? great idea!). Now the idea that mobile data is expensive is entrenched, it's really difficult to get people to adopt it.

I don't have a 3G phone yet, but am thinking of upgrading soon.

I think a lot of the reasons why people don't use 3G features is the cost - none of the providers offer a decent plan for people who make few calls/sms but want to use a fair bit of data - this is the sort of plan I'm looking for.

I rarely make more than about $10 worth of calls/sms per month, but I think with a 3G phone I'd be using the data component a bit more frequently. So I'd be looking for a plan which had data included in the monthly cap (together with calls/sms/etc) but haven't found anything like that with any provider yet... they all have PAYG data on top of the normal monthly costs, or you buy a data pack EXTRA.

My current phone is only 2G, and old Nokia 6670, it's still chugging along fine.
My next phone will of course be 3G, likely the N82, but despite this, I really can't see myself using many of the 3G features... the cost is still too high..
X-series on 3 is tempting, but their coverage isn't, the others don't have anything close to X-Series value!!

The cost of 3G is a bit silly when compared to other data transfer methods and the (non-mobile optimised) browsing experience is really quite sad.
My N81 has one of the better screens out there and there is so much scrolling around to do.

Since I live in a major urban area I am seldom without a free Wi-Fi hotspot, most of my net-needs usually can wait until I find one. Then there are all the unsecured Wi-Fi modems out there, if I wished to use them....

When I came to Australia in December I considered a 3G phone, but the cost was too high and the usability of the devices is extremely poor.

I would probably buy an iPhone having used one for a couple of weeks in the UK, but this would have to be coupled with 'unlimited' data plans as in the US and UK, otherwise the cost is impossible to justify.

I have a 3G phone and live in a 3G area (Inner North Canberra) But I rarely use 3G services. I actually avoid using them and when I do I cringe knowing that bill at the end of the month will be much higher. It simply costs way too much in Aus. I even have my phone setup to not download any graphics and only download email headers and it still stings when the bill arrives.

Data cost is too high so I don't use it. I could do video calling, but don't see the value when the image resolution is so poor.

Will be getting a USB 3G device ($39/month,5GB) to use with an 9" Eee PC at the end of June though.

I pay $5 a month for web services, don't use it for email unless I'm away from my desk, and then only for checking webmail headers.

I do use google maps and occasionally opera for web browsing when I need to know something on the fly... but it's way too expensive for high volume use.

Its too freaking expensive to browse the internet or sit on MSN. I racked up a 300 dollar phone bill in one month, just because i spent a day browsing.

Thats why i dont use "3g" features: its cost prohibitive.

Alternatievly i bought a 3g plan with vodaphone and can sit and download 5gb worth or data for 39 dollars a month. I probably only used maybe 500MB when i got charged nearly 200 worth of data on my normal mobile plan.

I have an unlocked iPhone from the US. Have had Nokia E61i previously. There is no way I could justify the expense and contracts to use 3G, period. Not on the phone or laptop. If there were short, like over the weekend, contracts and good coverage in rural areas where I need it, I might consider it.

I only use it for Telstra's Free Zone. I can't afford the stupid prices they throw on external sites.

A friend of mine has a Windows Mobile phone and uses the 3G for a lot of emailing but not for browsing. I think he's on a $29/80Mb plan. Absolute joke of a price. That's 1/2 the amount I pay for broadband with 20Gb!

If Telstra just dropped their prices, I think they'd make more $ by the increase in subscribers.

Telstra is the only carrier that has 3G coverage where I live and I won't be using any 3G features until the cost goes down.

Data account is way too expensive....
I will definitely use it if it was cheaper to do so.

I joined 3 with a 3G phone for years, made couple of Video calls to overseas, but the quality is poor and cost is far too expensive, can't be justified for the use. So since then never use the Video calls and Internet browsing, that just too expensive...

I live in Townsville where population is somewhere around 200,000, but this is the city where most of the time I even dont get a decent 2G coverage (except when I am in the city). I have optus plan.

I would like to use 3G provided the price is affordable.

It's far too expensive on my phone. I paid about $10 for about 10 minutes of phone surfing. Screw that! I pay $50/month for unlimited surfing on my home connection

Mobile data is a rip off, it's as simple as that.

I'm shopping for a new mobile at the moment and I've told salespeople not to bother telling me about the internet features. It's utterly pointless because they are too expensive to use.

Like most of the commenters here, i don't utilize the 3G services due to price. if offered a simple plan for gmail/google maps/gawker blogs, i would probably switch in a second.

if they ever put wifi on the trains, ill prob get a ipod touch.

Ridiculous prices for "data Plans" they deem to think 500MB is a lot and should charge you $80 etc. Bah

I had to buy a pre-paid phone from Telstra to tide me over till the iPhone comes out.

I've used the map functions on it a couple of times and I probably would have had better luck just randomly walking around Brisbane city. The interface is terrible! It took me far too long to type in the various details. I had to perceive because I was hopeless lost.

The other killer at the moment is price. I just can't afford it. Rather than go for a business plan which customer volume recoups investment costs, Telstra has gone for premium pricing for the few that can afford it. I get 3 gigabytes for $114 on Telstra's wireless 3G card which I would have avoided if I didn't have to go outside metropolitan areas.

Bring on the iPhone and hopefully the multiple carrier business model will help drive down data plans.

Imagine you have a capped service - but internet use is extra $'s. Its down to the money - I only ever used the free stuff after an initial trial of the paid service. Now with a new provider it's not worth the hassle or the expense for the service.

Give me a break. My 3G Mobile phone instruction book already has 93 pages which don't even mention the neat things I'd love to make work and the instructions seem to be written by someone who cannot think sequentially. This is how I know we didn't go to the moon.;o)

I have a Next G phone, and only ever use the internet to check google mail on the rare occasions that I may be away from a computer. Other than that, I find the interfaces are usually horrible to use. I'm not interested in music on my phone because I always have my iPod with me.

Reduce the costs, and we may use them more.

Having said that, Since having my iPod Touch, I'm actually very excited about the iPhone. The interface is truly a masterpiece in usability, and I can guarantee I'd use an iPhone's features far more than I have ever used any mobile phone I've owned over the last 15 years. I use my iPod Touch for things I can do on my mobile because a) the interface leaves every other mobile device I've used for dead and b) wi-fi is cheaper than using the Next G network.

I have a Telstra NextG phone, and all their 3G data pricing is obscenely expensive. It needs to be reduced to about 10% of the current price. There is a small amount of free stuff, but it's all trivial bits of fluff or marketing twaddle.
This is being posted from a laptop with inbuilt Vodafone 3G net access, which is affordable, but has been oversold, and the increase in use has exceeded their hardware expansion. The network speed has dropped to the point that it's not really a 3G service.

Here is how I use it. First of all I do not use your service providers browser such as optus zoo etc or limit its usage. Secondly get a mobile web browser such as opera mini to reduce the number of kb that is downloaded. Opera Mini compresses the data before sending it to your phone so it means that the content is delivered faster and costs less to receive. www.operamini.com . Thirdly monitor your usage via your phone's data usage function and reset it on a monthly basis as you would know when your billing cycle commences. I currently use optus 14.95 plan for 200MB but I know that 3 has got some better offers. I guess the thing with the 3G is that it drains the battery quicker than the GSM (at least it does on the SE handsets) so if you are not going to use the web, switch to the GSM reception and switch back when you need to use the web

I have small place 30 km outside of Bathurst - have set up carkit in house as base station with high gain aerial - cheaper than land line installation - works well but hand held only works limited locations - use for calls and sms only as otherwise too expensive. In Sydney, coverage good and have used video for some interstate catch up calls - occasionally "where is" facility only - don't need rest of it.

Well I use mine a bit for the 3G data. I pay $10 for 20Mb which is stupidly expensive.
But the 20Mb is enough to do my work emails through webmail and check a few Gmail acounts a few times each day.
Apart from that I read the news and check the weather etc all within Telstras 'free zone' so far in the past year or so I haven't spent over my limit yet :)
I also make occasional video calls to my family when away, so far this hasn't broken my $79 for $550 worth of calls.
So I guess I do utilize the 3G a fair bit, I also have a Vodaphone 3g modem for my laptop which I find works really well.

i would use the 3 g capabilities of my phone but there is no 3g coverage in Batemans Bay......

To the first Ben who posted, unsure what your issue is, I'm in inner north Canberra and have both home ADSL2+ and access to 3's 3G services (namely internet access on my N95)...

feel like elaborating on what your actual issue is?

I am with 3, and very rarely use it due to cost, and little need as I have broadband at home and work, and am rarely anywhere else.
I have actually disabled 3g on my pda as i had a 14% dropout rate- mostly from it swapping between 2g and 3g. I am quite happy with the fact that 3 have to pay telstra for every second that i use my phone, as they have refused to fix the 3g reception which is flimsy both at work and home. They are likely losing money. Sadly it chews the battery and I still can't talk in my kitchen.

I think we pay far too much for communications in general, it is a ridiculous percentage of income.

I would use the 3G capabilities of my phone if it wasn't such a rip off. I recently was living in Spain where my data use was 0.0012 euro (less than a cent!) per MB, or unlimted data for 1.20 euro a day. This was regardless of whether you had prepaid/contract or how much you spent each month.

Here it's so expensive and complicated. With vodafone I can't use the regular prepaid credit from my monthly cap (that is only for phonecalls/sms), I have to buy special "extras packs" for $5-$8 or more. Not only is that ridiculous pricing designed to confuse consumers and make sure their credit often expires before they've used it all, most of those "packs" only give you access to vodafone crap or specific sites like myspace/hotmail. I just want to check my email (which is not hotmail) and ocassionally use google maps. Why can't they just deduct an amount per Kb from the credit in my cap like phone companies do in most other places?

3G Video calls & browsing is still too pricey in Australia.
Another amusing story is the $29 Cap. I guess I was too silly to understand it. I originally thought that it would limit my calls to $29 per month, however, it appears you get $120 free calls and
whatever goes above the $120 mark are calls added to
the original $29, so I ended up with larger bills.
Not what I realy wanted. So beware.

I don't know if anyone else has this problem but I've noticed an interesting and mysterious trend with my 3G data services on Three mobile. My phone can be sitting on the table for an hour and be showing the "3" for network in use. Then literally within MINUTES of picking it up and using it to browse the web, it switches to "Roaming". Methinks 3 Australia is a little hooked on roaming charges...

I have an iPhone and I use it mainly for web browsing esp. when I'm on the train. That's the main reason I bought the iPhone. I must say however, that the cost of web browsing is a big worry. That is definitely a factor that caused me to limit my browsing to a minimum.

Hardly use it due to cost & the fact that coverage isn't very good outside the cities.

I just wan't a PHONE to be a PHONE and not all this rubbish with Internet and Music..I am still using my old fashioned phone and will not change.I went into a Telstra Store a month ago and all i got from the Sales rep was,It can play this music and that music and you can go on the Internet....i said to him are you going to keep blabbing about all thia music and internet bullshit ..amd would you believe he was so brainwashed he did not hear what i said..so i stood up dropped his you beaut phone in the waste bin and left the premises saying ...ALL I WANT IS A PHONE NOTHING ELSE . So Telstra you loose another customer.

too expensive, and too slow scolling around looking for the info you need especially with a small PDA or phone screen, and not optimised for mobile browsing. Also I dont use picture or video because A. dont like having my picture taken at all and also B. most people I contact dont have a phone capable of showing video yet anyway. The internet is handy to have when you are lost though.

I've been with 3 ever since they first began and I use the data services more than I can possibly count. Sure the prices can be rather high but you have to really sit and work out what you want before jumping into any deals. Just like any complicated purchase, if you don't get enough information or are unsure of what exactly you will be doing with your 3G services, you will be hitting pretty high bills.

I don't know about other carriers so I'll just go with what I have with 3.
My phone is a Dopod 838 Pro on a 49 dollar plan which basically covers all my calls for the month due to the cap. I also pay an additional $30 a month for mobile internet on the device which covers me for 2GB of data usage. This allows me to send and receive email on my phone and also check my other pop emails addresses (with Optus for instance) should I so choose to.

Surfing on the phone isn't exactly something you enjoy doing due to the size of the screen and the huge amounts of scrolling. However, I use the phone to connect to my laptop meaning that the 2GB of data usage I have on the phone, can be also used on the laptop as long as I use the phone as a modem and pretty much set it up to share the internet with my laptop. This gives me 2GB of data which may not be much, but is more than enough for a more than reasonable amount of surfing and my World of Warcraft addiction on occasion. And all this for an extra $30. Sure to a lot of you, it may not be justifiable or seem quite expensive but I think that the price is rather fair. Should it be cheaper? Of course...like everything in life it can be cheaper but I for one do not believe the cost is too high, or maybe I am just content with the service I pay for considering the amount of use I put into it.

Oh and just in case any of you were wondering, I do have a home ADSL2+ Optus internet connection so this is only for times I with to use the net away from home.

After CDMA i just wanted a phone, yeah SMS IS a handy feature, but i didn't need a full-blown communications centre with services that cost the earth.

I use a 3.5g phone and Virgin's $20/mth V2V service with a $10/mth 300mb data plan. I use the GPS on my phone, Handy Weather/Clock, and an application called Fring which allows me to use Skype/MSN Messenger/ICQ/Google Talk et cetera. MSN on my phone has become my main form of communication other than voice. It's dirt cheap and comparing it to SMS is akin to the difference between dial-up and broadband.

VOIP is the future and, hate to sound like a commercial; but the future is now.

If someone were smart enough to implement a viable naked DSL option (IINet and Internode are rorting $'s from people unnecessarily) I'd be there in a flash.

The things that keep Australia a third-world country, technologically; are high-cost limited (ie:traffic should be unlimited) internet and telephony.

I'm tech aware, work at ADSL2+ on an 802.11n network; but find it financially prohibitive to support Australian companies for my technological needs.

The current trend is to take the Australian market for as much money as possible while providing a substandard service.

In a global economy all this does is drive people who know better to offshore source/s. Not good for Australia or its future - which is a damn shame.

I was forced into getting my NextG simply for the coverage... I go bush quite frequently.. after CDMA closed. I hate it! All I want is a simple phone like my old Nokia 2112. Light, simple and robust!

And no, I'm not a luddite, in fact I'm IT support for a multinational!

Well, I have a 3G fone, and I *was* on a Vodafone data plan a few months ago, but the damn thing just kept freezing everytime I tried to access 3G services, and I'm not buying another handset.

Apart from that, I found 3G is not as reliable as I'd like (dropping out in Sydney Metro). So, I tossed in the towel and dropped off the data services.

Bottom line: When the technology is reliable enough, I'll embrace it.

I accidentally hit the Virgin Vibe button on my phone and quickly cancelled it but it still connects to the internet for a second or two before the cancel cuts in. I got the bill for my 2 seconds net access yesterday - $1.10 . no wonder no one uses teh services , they are ridiculously overpriced

I think a lot more Aussies would use these services if they werent so darn expensive i use my phone constantly and use a lot of the 3G features but when the bill comes in sometimes i wonder if it's worth it at all.......annoying but useful......why cant these services be made much cheaper to all.... right there your figures would go straight up and more and more people would embrace this type of technology.

I have an N95 which is severly handicapped without a proper data plan. As with most new phones, only a very small percentage of the phone's capabilities are actually locally available on the phone. Most of the power requires data access, which in this country is just far too expensive. The download speeds are there, but the download cap is too low and the cost simply too high for all but corporate users.

Too expensive. I'm not too worried about the whole screen size thing or the speed of it (i use it for work and it is plenty fast enough for my needs). What really irks me is that telstra is allowed to monopolise the sector. NextG is the only service that covers enough of the country to be remotely usable, but they charge so much it is not funny, and there is no way you can get a decent amount of data without commiting to them for the next 2 years or your first born, whatever comes first.

It will be interesting to see what vodafone offers with the iPhone. I suspect a lot more mainstream media outlets and les tech savvy people will become concirned about the shocking state of 3G in Australia if they rip us off any more.

Won't use it until the costs are reasonable, by reasonable I mean around the 2 cents per MB, not the crazy hundreds of dollars that you have to pay for a couple of MBs if your not on any rediculous contract.

Year right like we can all afford it..........Look Telstra has all the other phone companies by the balls and they charge like one too....so of course its going to cost the world......Fact is if you want people to use this technology then make it "accessible" "affordable" and "reliable" oh hell why am I bothering we are talking about Telstra here arent we????
Just another day in SILLYVILLE!!!

We are traveling around Australia, I thought it would be great but because of the lousty service and high costs it useless.

Bottom line is - who needs it? Who on earth actually WANTS to make or receive video calls? I fail to see the point. The conversation is the point of a phone call - not watching a jerky, pixelated image of the other person just talking.

And as for "streaming media" - who the heck wants to watch movies or TV shows on a tiny phone screen?

Apart from the anti-social aspects of doing that, and the outrageous costs for data - who actually wants to use a phone for anything other than phone calls? Not me.

I have a NextG Nokia as I need coverage in Tasmania outside the cities, and it's either NextG or nothing. But as for actually using any of the NextG or 3G features - never!

Just plain old voice phone calls - heck, I don't even use text messaging. I'd rather just make a quick call and get the conversation over with, instead of spinning it out over umpteen back-and-forth text messages that end up costing about the same as a short call.

Why don't I need it? because I sit infront of a computer all day at work and get everything Next G offers from there.
Apart from that it is way too expensive - luckily I'm a cynical old biddy so I can see through all their hype - I pity the kids who get sucked in by all this and their parents who end up paying

I have recently started using Google Maps on my Nokia E65 and love it. Can lookup specific types of businesses as I drive around - e.g. wanted to take away Thai dinner one night on the way back from city and was able to find one on the way!
I am on $5 per month explorer pack with THREE which seems to suffice.
At the same time, I will need to inexperienced and gullible to try and watch TV on the go, and pay heaps for it. I am not sure what they (3G providers) are thinking.

I looked up my facebook last week on my Nokia E65 through Optus. I'm on a $49 cap for calls. 4mb of download cost $59!!! Fortunately the $9.90 internet cap covered most of my usage. in the end it was only an extra $15 on my normal bill.

Having said that, I think it's way too expensive atm. I've used Google maps a couple of time and it hasn't been too much. After my facebook experience I don't think i'll be using it on a regular basis.

It is way too expensive, my new phone has GPS but to speed up the connection is uses it's 3G to connect to a server, so I just avoid this function as I don't know how much it will cost me. I like having the option there but prefer not to use it. Happy to browse the web on my phone if I'm at home using my WiFi connection, would like a bigger screen, that is where the iPhone wins.

Like some others, forced into Next G when CDMA was goinG to cancel in January. All I want is a phone for emergencies out of town & the occassional drive up the Newell H'Way to QLD.
Bought LG 550 'cos of blue tick & capacity for external antenna. Guy in a Telstra dealer shop broke the antenna socket whilst demonstrating where to connect it. That was on 15 April. Still waitng for them to do something about it. Still owe $630 on the 24 mth plan & no phone.
The whole Telstra Next G thing HAS BEEN ONE GAINT RIP OFF.

Yes, 3G on your mobile is too expensive. Using it for calls and S.M.S is costly enough. I would rather use my computer..

Telstra 3G - your kidding me right.

I have the cheapest poxest most basic CDMA phone on a prepaid plan - I recharge it at $5 a year....

That is it. I shall use it till it dies.

As for Telstra's 3G prices...

Those bastards the management of Telstra, should be kicked out onto the street, and lined up in a row and run over with a steam roller like the cane toads they are.

Outrageous prices.

I'm with 3, and don't currently use any of the extra features, as they are not included in my cap, and a horribly over priced. Video calling, internet browsing and music downloads all incur an extra fee. Until they are included within the 'cap' they offer i wont use them.
Besides, if these services are as unreliable as everything else they offer, id rather cut off my own hands than use them. 3 needs a kick in the ass and an adjustment to reality if they think they are providing their customers with quality service.

Thats why i have a Notebook. The alternative 3g, only more extreme and cheaper.
Yes , i do have two 3g ohones on Telstra , but switched off 3g and now on 2g.. Saves battery power too..
Talk and text is all i need.. Notebook does the rest.

I'm on 3, and use the free email service when travelling, and pay the 5 bucks per month data plan charges.

However, the only time I really use it is when I'm away from the cities, so its more like a GPRS service than true 3G. When I'm in the cities, I'm usually close to a true broadband connection, so don't bother.

Still, it beats the crap out of GSM, which has simply laughable internet connectivity.

I've never been big on games or gizmos on my mobile, i just want it for a phone and i don't have a landline aside from for my ADSL2.
recently i've subscribed to Fox on my mobile cause i'm at a remote minesite and need entertainment. What i've noticed? I just can't watch the same i dream of jeannie and battlestar galactica that many times ina row! the signal drops out and garbles the program, and as a pay off for having 3g on my phone, my new phone no longer works as a radio and all the games are demo's for 20 seconds then pay to download. If anything it's actually made my phone less usefull! I really can't be bothered trying to browse the web on it.... how tedious. I only got 3g cause it's all the shop sold and i needed to get telstra to get coverage on site.

I used internet and other 'advanced' features of 3g for a few months after i got my Nokia N73 from '3g only' operator. although it was really good to have my phone connected to internet, and i even managed to use 'voip' using my data connection. but the cost of maintaining a data plan with limited downloads did not seem to me as good-value-for-money; and has forced me to cut-off my data connection and use my phone only for voice calling. if unlimited plans came up i might consider using it again.

I suspect most people (like me) don't buy a 3G phone for 3G. We get a high end phone for other reasons (like the network gives it away) and if it comes with 3G so what, I might get around to it some time.
Other reason is that I don't normally trade stocks or book airline tickets while I am sitting in a bus. What would be really useful is a service that tells me when the next bus is coming. (note, I said when the next bus is coming, which is not the same thing as when it is due). But I guess there will never be serious money in that.

I have a NextG service and use it for Video Calls at night time when there 20c for 10 min, I didnt think i would use it as much as i do also i do use the free BigPond site for news some times, I also have got the foxtel on my phone which is $12 a month but i can use it as much as i want, so yes i do use 3G services but not for the internet as its $2 per MB (i think).

The problem is the costs of these services.

Data costs on mobile is still very high.

Perhaps if there was some bandwidth limit on plans every month (like ISPs) without extra cost, or if there was some other way to get free data with a phone plan, then it would be accessed and favored more by the people who use it. When others see them using it, they will try it, and 3G services will become for commonly used.

I think it is Great! I am on the mid-range X-series with 3. I get 500MB a month for $20. I connect the phone to my computer and I get 500kb/sec downloads wherever I want in Brisbane. It is cheaper than alot of broadband plans for the amount of data.

The main reason I have it though is because I work in a job which I am able to just take my laptop with me and surf the net... a 12+ hour shift goes alot faster if I can screw around on facebook.

It is probably the sole reason that I will renew my contract with 3 when the 24 months is up. The only people that get charged huge amounts from it are people who don't read the conditions or use common sense! For example: ebay chews through 500kb a page, this page is 120kb. Youtube chews through the MB at a huge rate (doesn't cache either, so if you want to watch it again, you have to download it again)

However, my 3G experience ends there. I have not even tried video calling (nor do I see any use for it for myself)

Over in Melbourne here. I was on Three for around four years, and I rarely used 3G services. Occasionally when I'm really bored I'd bring up some Sky News.

Having said that, I got an iPhone and went on Virgin Mobile's 300mb $10 data plan, and I use it every day. I set it to check my email (that does suck the battery fast though), and when I'm on the train I pop open Google Reader, and go through my news.

I regularly use the iPhone to check train timetables, Rotten Tomatoes, and movie times.

I find it indispensable, its just damn slow at loading websites on GPRS. I'd be willing to spend upwards to $900 for a 3G iPhone given how useful the iPhone already is.

So the problem with current 3G phones and services are:
- Premium services are expensive. Why do I have to pay so much to get stuff for free if I jump on the internet (with a cheap data plan).
- Internet interface sucks. No one wants to use a less than full featured browser, and a fiddly joystick or number pad.

The best way to enjoy 3G internet is using a bluetooth enabled laptop connecting to the phone. It allows you to use the net just as you would at home but you can now be mobile. Handy if you have a long train trip to work in the morning, can catch up on the latest news online. The downside is of course the cost for data. Once operators offer 3 or more GB for less than $35 it will make it a good alternative to fixed line services. But until then, it is way to expensive.

Jeez, after setting up IMAP mail i got slugged with a bill of just under $400 for a month. Only $19 of it was for phone calls. Al my phone did was check email and download the Headers... bugger that..

ITS THE COST!

all data charges in australia are a rip-off compaired to many other parts of the world.

i bought two mobile phones from telstra with the "3g" goods on board and after some issues with telstra we reverted back to the normal pre-paid telstra sim cards with absolutely no difference to the internet speeds or performance of the phones. also i bought another telstra locked prepaid mobile for my son that is not '3g' and in comparison the only difference is the *100# number works and it doesn't with the ZTE 3G phones.

So, I'm not to sure about 3G in Australia, as I travel alot and bought a phone that worked with 3G in Europe as i will be spending the majority of my time there for the next 2 years. However when I am in Australia because of the difference in frequencies used it reverts back to 2G.. slowwww expensive emails through telstra mms.

Why did Telstra decide to use a different frequency from the rest of the world?? (I think America does as well)

I do use 3G in Europe quite a bit - email, internet, directions etc. Just swap sim cards when i need to.

Telstra plan upgraded our mobiles to NextG service and sims. Good we thought until we used Google maps once to get directions within metropolitan Adelaide. One access cost us $3. What a bargain will definitely use again, I think not. As to mobile data plans $1 to $0.25 per excess mb what a bargain. A gig download would cost min of $250 to maybe $1000.
Again an absolute ripoff.

3G? only for email and text based at that. Everything else is too expensive.

Hells yeh I use 3G. Primarily for checking transport times, looking up something to settle a pub argument, showing people what something is (eg. Goatse) thanks to Google image search etc. I'd say I use it only about once a week. Also, I think Telstra's costs are down to $2/MB which is *much* better than it was, but still way overpriced.

Video chat is still a joke however, and I don't stream any music etc.