With no indication whatsoever of international pricing for the new Apple iPad yet, Hutchison Austria has gone ahead and used the US pricing as its benchmark when drawing up its plans for the device. They are planning to offer the WiFi version of the iPad (since this comes out earlier) for a cheap-ish price, with a subsidy of €333, if the customer commits to a 2 year plan for €29.90 (RM 141) a month. So, assuming we take the base iPad model as an example, it will cost around € (365 – 333) = € 32 (RM 151) for the device, plus the commitment of a €29.90 monthly plan for 2 years.
And how does one get online when there is no 3G coverage? Simple – Hutchison plans to bundle in the Huawei E583x portable 3G wireless router (which I have reviewed in this blog previously) as part of the plan. The €29.90 plan will have a fair usage limit of 5GB monthly. Personally, I think that if the customer owns the Huawei modem at the end of the 2 year contract, then this deal looks sweet – getting two devices in return for committing to the carrier for 2 years. And of course we’ll never ever, ever, see a deal like this in Malaysia. Ever. Not even if hell freezes over.
