Check on TCO calculation on iPhone 3GS from Taiwan Mobile?

Life Technology
1

A few weeks ago, I got a SIM-only plan with 台灣大哥大 (aka Taiwan Mobile, MyFone) to put in a Moto Milestone. Anyway, I happened to be back at 光華商場 (Guang Hua Digital Plaza) yesterday to get some other stuff and stopped by the MyFone store.

The girl remembered me and said I could still change the plan to include an iPhone 3GS if I wanted to given it hasn’t been a month. So I’m going to do that and gift or sell the phone to someone or use it for development.

Anyway, my current plan is the 401 voice + 699 data. If I understand this correctly, the voice is fixed (ie: you prepay for the minutes monthly even if you don’t use them) and the data price is capped at 800NT. And it’s a 24 month contract. Is that all correct?

If all this is correct, my 5-minute plopped together spreadsheet shows the following TCO. This excludes overage, text messages, SMS and assumes you will always hit the data cap. I did this for only the all-you-can eat data plans because a smartphone without one is pretty stupid.

TCO

PLAN      16GB   32GB
491+699   37724  41724
699+699   39876  43876
968+699   42432  46332
1500+699  55200  55200

The interesting thing is in the deltas. For example, going from a 401 to 699 is 2152 more TCO in both cases, or 90NT/month delta for the life of the contract, which makes it pretty cheap to hop up voice at that level to hedge against overages. However, going from 968 to 1500 is at worst 12768=1064/month delta and at best 739/month delta.

The chart in the brochure where they list the “price” of phone is hilarious given this data. The “free” 32GB is only on the 1500+699, which is much worst cost of ownership and actually on the margin worse than the difference in the prices for the monthly contract. Bravo to 台灣大哥大 for setting up the pricing so that they make better margin on the “free” phone, lol.

For reference, the chart is here. Hopefully my assumptions above are correct.

_                        16GB	16GB    16GB    16GB    32GB    32GB    32GB    32GB
Voice                    401    699     968     1500    401     699     968     1500
Data (699 capped to 800) 800    800     800     800     800     800     800     800
Phone                    8900   3900    0       0       12900   7900    3900    0
Prepay towards service   15400  19572   23338   30786   15400   19572   23338   30786
Initial Outlay           24300  23472   23338   30786   28300   27472   27238   30786
Full months prepaid      12     13      13      13      12      13      13      13
Leftover from prepay     988    85      354     886     988     85      354     886
Pay to complete contract 13424  16404   19094   24414   13424   16404   19094   24414
TCO                      37724  39876   42432   55200   41724   43876   46332   552000
2

As I said in the other thread, it’s pretty much been established that unless your social circle dictates you to choose FarEastTone or Taiwan Mobile over Chunghwa Telecom, the iPhone is still cheaper over at CHT.