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Judge Judges Optus Better Value Than Telstra |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 17 May 2007 |
It was a nasty backfire for the increasingly litigious and 'trash talking'
Telstra management team in the Federal Court when the Judge decided Optus was
right - it does offer better value. "It is undeniable," he said.
Telstra was trying to get for an injunction against Optus advertisements that
compared its $49 a month capped mobile plan to Telstra's $40 a month contract
plan. It didn't work though, Justice Gray denied the injunction says: "It is
undeniable that a consumer would get better value under the Optus $49 Cap plan,"
Justice Gray said.
"Telstra cannot show to the contrary. Optus is perfectly entitled to compare its
$49 Cap plan with Telstra's $40 phone plan,"the judge said according to
newspaper reports.
It's hard to see that there was any dispute. According to a comparison provided
by Optus: The Telstra $40 phone plan includes just $35 worth of voice calls and
text per month, plus $5 of included data/GPRS. The Call rate per 30 seconds is
38c and the flagfall is 27c. National text is charged at 25c (unless Text Option
is selected). Optus calculated that this equals up to 19, 2 minute voice calls
between 8am and 7pm to any home or mobile number in Australia (more if you
choose the My Hour option and you call during your selected hour).
Telstra will give you a Motorola RAZRMAXX V6 valued at $729 rrp+ to make your
calls.
Meanwhile, the Optus $49 Cap Plan includes up to $300 worth of voice
calls and text per month, which equals 153 2 minute voice calls any
time between 8am and 7pm to any home or mobile number in Australia. The
call rate would be 40c per 30 sec with a flagfall of 35c. National text
charge is 25c. Optus will give you a Nokia N73 valued at $809 rrp to
make your calls.
(Umm, are we missing something? The Optus deal is better by a
factor of 10! Telstra had the cheek to waste The court's time with a
request for an injunction. Justice Gray should have found the Telstra
legal team in contempt of court - IMHO).
Meanwhile, The Australian also reports that Telstra and Fox Sports were
able to settle their differences outside the courts with the two sides
agreeing that 1 minute 45 seconds was a reasonable "fair use" of an NRL
match. If that's on a mobile phone though, "fair" is only 1 minute and
30 seconds!
Telstra initially issued court proceedings against Premier Media Group, which
owns Fox Sports trying to limit coverage to 45
second per match and a total of 90 seconds for each round. The court refused to grant Telstra an injunction - again.
Telstra BigPond chief executive, Justin Milne, said the out of court
settlement was good because it found a balance between the two
orgnaisations' commercial needs and those of the customers trying to
find out what happened at the footy. Ohand it also avoided expensive,
ongoing legal action.
Telstra has paid a total of A$170 million for digital rights and
sponsorships of the NRL, the AFL and V8 Supercars.
BTW: You really need to check the
network operators and do your own comparison, not just trust me for the
details. You can however, trust Justice Gray who said the Telstra plan
is just not as good value as the Optus one.
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