Yesterdays announcement from Telecom offering a very nice sounding reason to owners of iPhone 3G/3GS’s (or is that 3jesuses)  sure does sound good but is it as great of an offering as they say? At $1149 for an unsubsidized iPhone, I can’t imagine there being more than a few hundred people this whole thing is applicable to. I am part of those handful of people.

I have been a customer of Vodafone as long as I’ve had a cell phone. Suffice to say for most of that I’ve felt shafted but know as well as anyone that switching got you fundamentally the same plan at the same price with a different number.

I currently spend $90+ on my Talk 120 plan – far from good value but not really worth me jumping on a specific iPhone plan. Below I’ve tried to make a comparison of the similar plans on Vodafone and Telecom. This isn’t too scientific and feel free to point out any errors.

So there you have it – tie yourself to Telecom and get 25% off your plan over the course of the 2 year contract. Of course will the pricing on plans change much over the next 24 months? I would hope so but we all know how it works in NZ.

One thing we should all demanding – carry over minutes. They market these plans as having ‘free/included minutes’ but in reality when you pay $60 for 120mins (as I do now) you’re really paying $0.50c a minute for calls with a gaurantee of paying for at least 120 of them – which makes one wonder – if one pays for these minutes at that rate you should be allowed you to carry over the minutes for the next month – but not in NZ, if you don’t use your minutes they disappear into the either and you still pay for them.

Will I switch? It depends. The question will Vodafone try and keep me?