Windows Phone 7 in Australia
Want to sign up online for a Windows Phone 7 phone with Australia’s largest carrier? Microsoft Australia's "Major Launch Partner" for Windows Phone 7? Good luck!
Edit! As predicted, Telstra have "fixed" the problem by removing the "Buy now on a plan" link entirely from the HTC HD7 on the Windows Phone 7 page. They don't even give you the illusion of caring now.
First, let’s take a look at Telstra’s home page:
It’s quite a nice looking site. I’ll click on “Mobiles” under “Personal”:
Ok, no Windows Phones in there. However, under the “Mobile Phones” link at the top left you can select it:
Excellent! Now let’s take a look. Ooh! $1 shipping when you shop online! Closely followed by “Not available online” except for the HD7:
Oh well, I’ll go with an HD7. Let’s click on the “Buy now on a plan” link. That takes me to Telstra’s online store home page without passing any information about the item I clicked on:
Fine! I’ll choose the “S” plan and click on “WITH A NEW MOBILE PHONE” to get that sexy HD7:
Wait … where is it? WHERE IS IT, TELSTRA?
Is it any wonder that Windows Phone 7 isn’t taking off in this country?
For fun, take a look at Optus’ website (which, if you can find the link, talks about “Windows 7” as a phone operating system) or Vodafone’s (which failed with an HTTP 408/409 Server Busy error while I was trying to even find a reference to Windows Phone 7).
Don’t even get me started on the fact that Telstra was the second last carrier in the world to roll out the NoDo update, and still shows no sign of deploying the HTC tethering update or the 7740 voicemail-notification patch.
Are you paying attention, Microsoft?
Comments
# Ciaran
9/12/2011 1:17 PM
In fairness, even clicking the “Buy now on a plan” for the iPhone doesn't pass through which phone you've clicked on. Major UX fail.
But not having any WP7 on their plan page is really poor of Telstra. Hopefully when the Nokia Lumia is released over here that will change. It appears to be making waves over in Europe.
# Alan Burchill
12/12/2011 7:27 AM
Just spoke to @telstra via twitter and they are saying that this is "not an issues" and that not all phone can be purchased online. I then poited out that they DO sell the HD7 online... Apparently they are doing something about it now... check out the conversion between @alanburchill and @telstra
# mabster
12/12/2011 7:40 AM
Good news, Alan! Although part of me wonders if Telstra will "fix" it by removing the "buy online" option from the HD7, leaving us with the current situation of being unable to purchase a WP7 phone online.