As I described elsewhere, when we returned from our recent trip to America, we decided we needed to buy two new mobile phones.  With at least six major competitors in the Australian market (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Virgin, Orange and Three), each of them having several different pre-paid and post-paid plans with varying upfront and monthly charges, it was hard to know where to begin.  The decision was made even more difficult by a plethora of new features that did not even exist the last time I was in the market: phones with built-in cameras, color screens, custom ringtones, web browsers and downloadable ‘‘Java’’ games.

I decided that the only way I could make any sensible comparison of all these different options was to come up with several ‘‘usage scenarios’’ based on how I thought Amy and I would use our phones.  I made one scenario for Amy and three for myself: a ‘‘minimum’’, ‘‘likely’’, and ‘‘high’’ usage scenario.  Each scenario consisted of the number of calls (of various durations) we expected to make each month to landlines, other mobiles on the same network, mobiles on a different network, international calls to the USA, voicemail retrieval, text messages, photos sent to other phones on the same network, photos sent to phones on a different network, and downloads of custom ringtones, wallpaper and Java games.  (We weren’t even sure whether we would get a phone with a camera built in, but I included all of these features in my analysis so I could compare the cost of a ‘‘fancy’’ phone and a more ‘‘basic’’ one.)

Then I created a fairly complex spreadsheet to calculate the expected total cost (over the next three years) of each usage scenario with each company and each mobile plan we were considering.  For each plan, the spreadsheet included the upfront phone cost, the minimum monthly plan charge, monthly call credits included in the plan, the ‘‘flagfall’’ (or connect charge) and per minute charges to landlines, other mobiles on the same network, mobiles on other networks, calls to the USA, voicemail retrieval, text messages, photo messages, ringtones, wallpaper and games.  I gathered as much information as I could from each company’s web site and then phoned the company for more information or clarification as necessary.

Initially I analyzed 20 different calling plans from five of the six companies mentioned above.  Each plan was analyzed under all 4 usage scenarios, which made for 80 different projections to compare (plus an extra one for an unusual ‘‘2 on 1’’ plan from Orange that allows you to share the usage of two phones on a single calling plan).

The reason I made three different usage scenarios for myself was because I found that some of the plans that were more competitive under the ‘‘minimum usage’’ scenario were not as good under the ‘‘high usage’’ scenario and vice versa.  I wanted a plan that would ‘‘scale’’ nicely so that it would be competitive across our whole range of probable usage.

There were a number of trade-offs that had to be made.  For the amount and type of usage we were looking at, the ‘‘ Metro PrePay’’ plan on the Orange CDMA network was by far the cheapest across our entire range of expected usage.  Unfortunately, however, their service does not support photo messaging, and they don’t offer any phones with built-in cameras.  So another possibility we considered was getting one camera phone and one regular phone, which would allow us to spend less money (than getting two camera phones) but still have a little fun.

As if all this weren’t enough, there was the added pressure of an Optus sale that lasted only until the last day of March.  I had created my spreadsheet on the 30^th of March and wanted to make a decision by the next day in order to take advantage of the special Optus prices.

Finally on the morning of the 31^st I made up my mind.  We would get one Optus pre-paid phone with a built-in camera for Amy and one Orange Metro PrePay phone (with no camera) for myself.  That afternoon, before I left for the shopping centre, I made one more call to Orange just to check on something.  I knew that the Orange mobiles didn’t have a camera, so they couldn’t take pictures and send them.  But if I got a phone with a color screen, could I receive a photo sent from another phone?  The sales agent said he didn’t think so but he would check.  He came back and confirmed what he had thought was the case. ‘‘No, we leave the multi-media capability to our ‘Three’ network.’’

Now this was an interesting answer.  While searching the web for mobile plans, I had come across the ‘‘Three’’ company, but I didn’t even include them in my original analysis because I couldn’t make sense of their web site, and because I had not previously heard of them, and also because I thought that ‘‘3’’ was a stupid and confusing name for a company.  (I still do think that.)  But it turns out that Orange and Three are both owned by the same company, Hutchison Telecoms Australia.  Orange is their low-cost ‘‘no-frills’’ brand, and ‘‘Three’’ is their fancy new ‘‘3rd-generation’’ mobile network.  I had heard the term ‘‘3rd-generation’’ before, but I didn’t know what it meant.

After that, I went to the shopping centre as I had originally planned, but before going to Optus I stopped at the ‘‘3’’ store.  I got a pricing brochure and looked at their NEC e313 camera phone, which was the least expensive handset they offered.

I was immediately impressed.  Not only could these phones take a photo and send it to another phone, they could do live video calls!

But how much would it cost?  Without plugging all the numbers into my spreadsheet, I couldn’t be sure how the pricing would compare with the other plans I had analyzed, but their call rates (for regular voice calls) looked comparable to the Orange PrePay plan, so I figured the cost should be fairly competitive with the other plans I had analyzed.  I was eager to get home and run the numbers.  I also visited Optus, as I had planned, but decided not to buy a phone that day until I had added the ‘‘Three’’ network to my cost comparison.

That now made 21 calling plans from six companies, for a total of 85 pricing scenarios in my spreadsheet.  My guess about the ‘‘3’’ pricing was correct; the projected cost was comparable to the other services that offer photo messaging -- plus ‘‘3’’ has live video calling, which none of the other companies do.

In fact, ‘‘3’’ is the only ‘‘3rd-generation’’ mobile network in Australia -- and to think that I almost didn’t consider them at all!  But I found out that the reason I was not previously familiar with the company is that it is a fairly new network; it just became operational one year ago this month.

Depending on how we use them, these phones could wind up being cheaper than any of the other alternatives, because voice calls from one ‘‘3’’ phone to another are free for the first 10 minutes of each call!

Finally, after discussing all of this with Amy, we decided to get two new NEC e313 mobile phones on the ‘‘3’’ network.