Well, I bought a new mobile phone today, since I was out of contract with Telstra for the old one… my two years was up, the call rates sucked, and so did the other available services. So their luck ran out when it came to me. Virgin and Vodafone don’t have the coverage that I’m looking for (lots of out-of-city is what I need) so they were off the list to start with.
Optus have good coverage, and a plan where the call rates to mobiles are 18 cents per thirty seconds, and 18 cents SMS all day every day. I scored myself a Nokia 5140 over 24 months, paying $35/month minimum spend. I could have gone for a $25/month minimum spend, but then I would have only gotten myself $15/month included calls, which is stupid since I tend to spend that much money anyway.
I’m still waiting for the number to port across, since I signed up at 3pm on a Saturday. Australia’s porting hours are 8am-8pm Monday to Friday and 10-6 on weekends, so I’m still stuck on Telstra until monday morning, due to the inevitable porting delays that happen when you’re trying to take your business from one company to one of its competitors. *sigh*
The phone seems to have some really nice features, the body of the handset is basically waterproof, and rather tough. The screen isn’t a full colour one (only 4096 colours) but I’m not looking to watch movies or anything on it. If I want to see full colour pictures, I’ll download them to my PC or take them with my proper digital camera in the first place.
I borrowed a data cable off Lauren, but I seem to be having problems trying to get it working, I think the main problem is because it’s a non-genuine one. I’ll post more as I get connected (to the service and through the cable) and I explore the features available to me through both!