Hi All

I am posting this to get the views of others around the new Blackberry Smartphone Plans that Telecom are offering see: http://www.telecom.co.nz/mobile/mobile/plansandpricing/paymonthly 

I am in the position where i have a spare Blackberry Handset that I would like to get the Wife to start using but of course to make it worth while it requires a Blackberry Data Plan either a BIS or BES

i am just after the BIS option here as i have no plans to run a BES server at home. so i started to look at the options that they had and found the above info which is all well and good but a little on the pricey/not practical side for me at the moment but even if i could make the budget stretch to the $50 BB Smartphone Plan i have issues with what is gives you for your money 50 anytime minutes sounds ok but the 300 txts is a little on the light side based on the amount she sends now and then the 500mb of data is what i would call on the excessive side. i know i could add a txt boost to bring it up to more txts but that will make the bill at least $60 per month 

I use a Blackberry for work and barley use 100mb a month unless i am out of the office and need to teather my laptop.

After making contact via the telecom website to enquire about a "BIS Data Extra" that could be added on to the account like you can with Txt and Data Extras i was told the only way of doing that was to spend $30.61 for a 100mb BES extra which make the total for her account go up to about $60 (she has the $12 2500 txt option, $6 50mb data for her current phone and it is on the One Rate Combo @ $15 per month with 40 anytime min)

I was also advised that the cost difference was due to the nature of Blackberry data and how it is compressed so it adds extra complexity to the setup which i agree with but if they compress the data why have such a large cap surely with compression you can get more for less. 

I also suggested they should have made the plan go something like $50 for 50 anytime minutes, 500 or 1000 Txts and drop the data to 250mb and i would be happy to pay for it.

i suppose the question I am asking everyone here is do you think they should have a BIS Data Extra that is priced some what along the lines of the Current extras (prepaid ones) that would allow say 100mb of BIS for $12 and say 250mb for $18.

If they did this i think they may have a few more people taking up the blackberry option for personal use as well as Business use

Right that's my Rant for the Day this may or may not stir some debate but at least i got it off my chest