On Monday, Telstra Corp., the largest telecommunications group in Australia, announced it would start offering Apple’s iPhone, starting July 11.

The company announced iPhone plans beginning at $30 a month; the 8GB version will cost $279 and the 16GB model will be made available for $399. Customers will also be able to choose the $80 a month plan that will get them the 8GB iPhone for free; the 16GB edition can be obtained for free with a $100 monthly subscription fee.

In May, four major companies in the Asia-Pacific area announced that they would start distributing the iPhone. SingTel will bring the device in Singapore, Bharti Airtel Ltd. will take on India, Optus will cover Australia and Globe Telecom Inc. will sell the iPhone in the Philippines.

So now, Telstra has joined Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.'s Australia-based unit Optus and Vodafone Australia. All three companies will start commercializing the iPhone on July 11.

The iPhone has been great business so far, as Apple became the third largest smart phone supplier of the world. The American company has reached this stage despite the fact that it launched the iPhone on the market not that long ago and in four countries only. It seems that now the smartphone is ready to go global.

In May, Orange announced that later this year, it will bring the iPhone in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean. Several countries were mentioned including Austria, Belgium, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland.

At the end of last week, it was announced that Apple Inc. and China Mobile Communications Corp., the largest mobile provider in China, are finally getting closer to closing an iPhone-distribution deal. However, no release date has been announced yet.