you want to hear something really funny.. i went into a telstra store on saturday to enquire about data charges:

$5: 5MB
$10: 10MB
$29: 80MB
Excess $1 per MB (charged per KB)

$59: 200MB
$89: 1GB
$119 3GB
Excess usage (charged per KB or part) $0.25 per MB

and you need to pre-elect how much usage you use per month. They said they dont have any plan to bring out new data allowences either

speakafreaka

Telstra's imported executive loves his buzz words, and has been caught out several times for misleading information when promoting Telstra's networks

PhilbertDeion

Sounds to me like the whole story is a crock of baloney. Two of Telstra's competitors have announced they will be offering the iPhone later this year. Telstra has not. No Telstra executive has been named as having made these remarks, giving the impression the whole thing is fiction.

NorrisMnemosyne

Giz, you (and all the other tech blogs) are still missing the boat on this one. It's true that the claim was patently absurd for all of the reasons you mentioned, but you're missing the biggest reason of all:

The iPhone's hardware itself simply can't handle that much speed. Even if it had the proper chipset and network capabilities, the CPU simply couldn't keep up with it. Not even close. As it stands, there aren't any mobile devices out there that can handle much more than 2Mbps because there simply isn't enough processing power in the unit.

packetsniffer

Yup, we can pretty safely call shenanigans on that one.

I'm sure phones that support much higher transfer rates will come out but, as Jesus says, not for a couple of years yet.

Sleeper_Service

Im quite certain that Telstra will be offering their 3G network access @ 42mb/sec for home pc users. The claims of it being possible on the iPhone is nothing short of a joke.

And yes, Telstra is one hell of an evil corporation, they are the monopoly owner of the entire countries land-line copper, and telephone exchanges...and they push 50%+ proffit margins. They also charge the same cost for backhaul intra-nationally as it costs to get international data, so anyone who wants to get data from them has to pay through the roof, despite the actual cost to telstra being next to nothing.

So depressing.

cerberus_oz

@drewheyman: what i meant is that, if you are deploying a whole new network, is it worth it to install equipment capable of supporting 42Mbps devices and take you well into the next decade or install equipment that is going to require a new upgrade in one year?

jesusdiaz

Last I heard was that Telstra turned down the Iphone coz they didnt want to pay Apple the $$$ for the exclusivity stuff, thats why Vodafone and Optus (Singtel) announced lately that they are bringing it out.
and i live in Australia so i should know...
and also Telstra sux too

KraazyCraig

This post is pretty funny.

Guess people havent realized that you shouldnt piss off Jesus.

You go to hell. lol.

MadColombian

When the speed limit sign was photoshopped, they should have put some blur under the 7.2 between the fake #s and the real sign. The difference is really easy to spot.

mferrari

@jesusdiaz: it makes sense to deploy them when they exist. which they don't yet.

And the 3GPP standard (R7 best as I can tell) that discusses 42mbps was only completed end of March, so development has probably not even started yet.

drewheyman

The iPhone or any other mobile device.

And btw, for the new networks, it's totally worth it to deploy new equipment which can support those devices.

jesusdiaz

@drewheyman: They are just a new network competing with another network which is deploying 42mbps now. They have to keep the buzzword battle up. It's all about marketing. This marketdrone just wanted that, to grab some headlines.

Let me repeat this again, because apparently it hasn't been clear the last six times: 14, 24 and 42Mbps baseband chips don't exist at this point in time. The first will start getting sampled at the end of the year, with deployment a while after (we don't even know exactly when). And the other two are just points in a powerpoint slide.

There's no way, unless aliens come down to earth, that the iPhone will communicate at 42Mbps at the end of the year. Or in 2009. Or 2010 for that matter.

jesusdiaz

you all should call Telestra up to ask about their magic network. it seems like a supreme waste of money in terms of cost/benefit to upgrade your network to larger theoretical bit rates, when that doesn't necessarily mean that slower connections can share more efficiently across that higher band (ie, one connection at 42 isn't the same as 3 at 14).

to put it more simply, it's like upgrading your speedometer on your GeoMetro from displaying 1-85 mph to displaying 1-200 mph.

Does Telestra know something we don't know?

drewheyman

@dagamer34: Can you actually read?

There are NO baseband chips capable of doing 14.4Mbps at this point in time. And there are not going to be until 2009. This guy is talking about 42Mbps iPhones by years end.

There are not even plans for 42Mbps baseband chips or 24Mbps.

See the difference? Crackpot marketdrone puffer Telstra guy is simply wrong.

This story is not a "rumor." This story debunks the words of some senior executive moron. It only took five minutes of research to do so.

And regarding point one and two, 1) the code talks about the S-Gold 3 and 2) the S-Gold 3 tops at 7.2Mbps. Fact and fact. But again, I don't even care about that. See above.

jesusdiaz

Points 1 & 2 have no official confirmation from Apple. It's just as big a rumor as this story. Oy.

dagamer34

There is a company you should add you your evil corporations list. I don't know any Aussies who speak highly of Telstra.

Archavious

Not till the next decade? Sheeeeeeeeet. In a decade I'd hope iphones take better pictures than most SLR's and are connecting to everything via satellites so we can kiss these cell towers goodbye.

johnnyabnormal

@n9n3: And your point is exactly what?

• That Qualcomm chip tops at 14.7Mbps, not 42Mbps.

• Sampling means sampling, not mass production.

• Do you think that you can swap the Infineon S-GOLD 3 at the end of the year and put a non-compatible chip by a third party? Are you aware of the kind of integration and development that a product like this requires?

Simply put, the Telstra dude is just a) an ignorant, b) someone who just wants to puff his network and grab press, c) someone who consumes too much peyote, or d) all of the above.

Please read the article again.

jesusdiaz

ask CowboyNeil. he'll tell ya.

froggy

There is this chip... [www.qualcomm.com]

Sampling starts Q4 of 2008, so there's always a chance they have worked out another exclusive chip deal.

n9n3

You left out the part about wishing. If we all wish really hard it will be true, chipset be damned.

adamator

There is no way Apple has a working MIMO antenna system either. This is required to achieve HSPA+ speeds.

FuzzysFriedChicken

@rbf2000: No. He's talking about their 3G network.

jesusdiaz

Maybe he's talking about a b/g wifi chip in there? Which would mean that speed over wifi?

rbf2000

jesusdiaz-say-what? NeiL

VernonElipticate