Quality Peoples

Update: Gente, vayanse a firmar la petición que demanda precios justos para el iPhone en Mexico: NelTelcel.com, go now!
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The moment all us peoples south of the er, um, the southern United States border have been waiting for: Apple’s iPhone is finally coming to Mexico. Telcel is the carrier. A quick click over to Telcel’s official iPhone rate plan page and the unbearable truth starts to sink in: we may have the iPhone but Telcel’s plans totally suck. Here’s what they look like, prices are in US dollars:

Most people outside of Mexico will be shocked by the paltry amount of minutes mexicans get for their money. Despite being a developing nation, mexicans pay more than three times what people in the states and Europe do (if you adjust for average income, it’s more like 20x). Unfortunately, Telcel enjoys a monopoly that’s well documented. High prices for talk minutes is a way of life here, most people shrug and bear it. The real kick in the pants isn’t the minutes, it’s the data.

The iPhone is sold by Apple, as a new kind of internet connected device. For the first time you can really use a web browser and watch videos on your phone (streamed from You Tube), check google maps, take and upload photos to sharing sites like Flickr, and now with MobileMe and support for Microsoft Exchange, the iPhone can instantly sync contacts, mail and calendar items, as well push data to 3rd party apps. The iPhone is the first truly connected internet device. It makes the blackberry feel like this.

Apple’s iPhone is a good phone, but it’s a great internet device. and the key to that functionality is plenty of data, in and out. Without lots of data, it’s just a phone and iPod. How boring.

Over the past few weeks, as cellphone carriers across the world began to publish their rates in anticipation of the 3G iPhone’s launch, the internets have been ablaze with harsh critique of Canada’s Rogers, whose data rates were considered downright stingy. Rogers eventually heard the call and are giving a “limited” promotional offer upping the limit of data to 6gb. The funny thing is, Rogers’ original data rates were still much higher than the ones Telcel currently has.

Rogers’ original data rates were essentially $10/100mb or $30/300mbs and $50/500mbs. The new “limited” promo offer gives canadians $30/6gb. Or in real world terms: “with 6gb of data, iPhone 3G users can visit 35,952 web pages, or send and receive 157,286 emails, or watch 6,292 minutes of YouTube videos each and every month.” That quote comes from Rogers.

I like how Rogers break down the real-world usage, of what you can do with your 6gbs of data. Let’s see what Telcel gives you:

These numbers don’t look half bad when broken down into categories like that. But when you think of real-world, daily usage, anyone whose using the iPhone for its internet connectivity, whether for recreational or business, is gonna go over the alloted mbs. And the overage is the killer: for each 6 webpages or 26 emails or 1 video you’ll pay $4. To bring it a step further, once buying music direct from the iTMS over iPhone becomes available, the overage will cost you $16 per 4mb song.

That’s just madness. Basically, the ridiculously low data allotment for each plan becomes an excuse to charge additional fees. Exactly the same strategy Telcel follows with regards to SMS: include a small allotment of SMS and charge ridiculous prices for additional messages. Why? Because they can.

For those of you who havent drifted off to sleep, I highly doubt I’ll be purchasing an iPhone at these published rates. These plans literally kill the idea of the iPhone as an internet connected device. Telcel are doing what they always do: using a monopoly to make people pay through the nose.

And Apple? I’m kinda pissed at Apple. They knew that Telcel was going to publish these rates when they signed the contracts. Telcel’s owner, Carlos Slim, is a major investor in Apple, he owns something like 6% of Apple. Couldn’t Steve Jobs have had a coffee break with Slim and be like “Hey, buddy, I know you’re the 3rd richest person in the world, but ah, can you be a little less fuckin’ stingy with the data plans over there? I mean we’re trying to get your subscribers to spend more time on the internet, not less. Can ya hook it up?” Or better yet, why not have given the iPhone to one of Telcel’s competitors like the spain-based competitor Movistar, who’ve tried to move mountains in the mexican political arena to undo Telcel’s boston crab-like hold on the average mexican’s paycheck. Movistar would have had a much smaller user-share, but they most surely would have fair and adequate plans, plans that were designed with the iPhone’s internet connectivity in mind. Instead, Apple went for market share.²

Here’s to hoping:

• Telcel realizes their plans suck and changes them to better compliment the iPhone’s raison d’être
• Apple puts the pressure on Telcel to give us a “limited” introductory 6GB plan or at least something slightly better than the crap Telcel has now. If Telcel can’t be persuaded Apple uses the ol’ bait-n-switch technique and sends them a cargo container full of Blackberry’s iPhone killers
• The Mexican government takes its collective head out of its ass and starts behaving like it’s actually a body elected by the people to serve the people and responsible to the people³

internal tags: apple, iphone