One of the more exciting features of the iPhone’s new OS 3 was the ability to use your device as a modem for your computer. Unfortunately, companies like Optus in Australia and AT&T in the US have seen this as an opportunity to further gauge their customers out of their hard earned cash.

In Australia, if you want to use your iPhone as a modem on Optus, you will need to subscribe to their modem plan, currently at $9.95 a month. This allows you to use data YOU HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR via your mobile phone. This monthly payment doesn’t give you any extra data allowance. All it does is allow you to use your existing limit.

Usually with Optus if you want to add more data to your plan, it will cost you extra to purchase ‘data packs’. These data packs go from $4.99 for 25MB (useless) to $19.95 for an extra 1 GB (much more useful but REALLY expensive). These extra packs don’t ‘require’ you to pay the $9.95 for mobile as a modem unless you want to use it that way. At the moment Optus is offering to roll back this payment for the next 3 months, but will start charging the fee after that.

However, this now all changes if you want to get an extra 2GB ($24.99) to 6GB ($44.99). Optus makes the assumption that you would only ever use this amount of data on a tethered iPhone, and so you HAVE to purchase these data amounts with the modem fee as well. The assumption is reasonable enough. I would imagine you would have to be a real internet junkie to go through 6GB of data on a handheld device – it would just be nice to be treated like an adult.

Back in July 2008, I stood in line with a large number of like minded nerds waiting outside the Apple Store in Sydney to purchase an iPhone. It took 7 hours to get my hands on my first iPhone. The ONLY reason I had to wait 7 hours was that Optus were the only telecom with the device to understand that its iPhone users wanted to be able to access data. The data plans on Optus were far superior to Vodafone or Telstra at the time, and users voted with their feet. At any time during the day if you wanted a Telstra iPhone plan, you could be served immediately.

Now, with the release of the iPhone 3GS in Australia, the other telecoms have learned their lesson and are offering far superior data packages to Optus. Here is a brief comparison of iPhone plans between Optus, Vodafone and Virgin (Telstra still has terrible data plans and Virgin are not yet advertising mobile tethering):

Plans chosen reflect the 32GB version of the iPhone 3GS.

As you can see, the simple choice for value for money is Virgin, saving you $14.95 a month over Optus. I really hope Optus realise that this extra charge is a mistake and continue their current offer of refunding the $9.95 charge each month.

Disclaimer: The usual caveats apply in that we are not discussing call use, coverage, the plans may not meet your needs, do your own research, etc…