Vodafone officially confirms iPhone price leak

Mobile carrier Vodafone Australia has confirmed portions of an advance leak of pricing information for its local iPhone 3G launch on Friday morning are accurate.

The carrier posted the pricing plans on its website this morning, but they were quickly removed and have since been the subject of intense speculation on whether they were real. They can be found online in text form on the CNET.com.au forums here.

A Vodafone Australia spokesman this afternoon told ZDNet.com.au that the first of the two leaked pages was very close to what the carrier was likely to release when it officially published its iPhone plans, likely early on Thursday morning. The carrier had previously been planning to publicly release the plans today.

The first page features an AU$69 monthly capped plan for the iPhone 3G, including an up-front price of AU$189 for the 8GB model or AU$309 for the 16GB model. The plan would include AU$310 worth of phone calls and SMS messages combined with 250MB of data per month.

A second capped plan for AU$99, with 500MB of data and a sizable increase in talk and SMS value sees the 8GB iPhone still selling for an additional AU$99, but the 16GB model's up-front price has been reduced to AU$219.

Vodafone also includes several higher-cost plans, ranging up to AU$169 monthly, where buyers can get the 8GB model for no up-front cost, although they will still pay AU$89 for the 16GB model.

However, the spokesman emphasised Vodafone would offer options where buyers could get the iPhone for no up-front cost and instead pay off the handset over a 24-month period for a much smaller price, for example AU$4.13 per month extra on an AU$99 per month plan for the 8GB model.

But the Vodafone spokesman backed away from confirming the veracity of the second leaked page, which details a range of "jumbo cap" contracts from AU$29 per month up to AU$149 per month. They described the information contained on the page as "not fully baked".

Vodafone will hold a 200-person iPhone launch at Regimental Square in Wynyard, Sydney, in addition to other events in capital cities around the nation. Telstra and Optus are also planning to sell the iPhone locally, although only Optus has fully released its pricing plans thus far.