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At time of writing, Google's latest phone - the Nexus One -  is not available for purchase in Australia, which is a shame as it is a very nice phone!

The only way to officially purchase a Nexus One is from Google's own online store - http://www.google.com/phone. If you try to access the store from a country that google is not officially allowing purchases from, you will get a message "Sorry, the Nexus One phone is not available in your country or region." Google are blocking access to the store to all IP addresses that are not located in Canada, Singapore, the UK, Hong Kong and the US. Google are also restricting the shipping address you send the phone to only those countries. Therefore, to import a Nexus One to Australia, you have to get three things, a US shipping address a US IP address and a Google Checkout account.

US Shipping address

Since you can't ship the phone directly to an Australian postal address, you need to have the phone shipped to a US address. One solution is to use a "freight forwarder", a company in the US that will ship to you any packages that are shipped to them. I chose to use COMGateway after the postitive feedback I read on whirlpool here, here and here. The other reason I chose COMGateway is the shipping address that COMGateway will give you is located in Portland, Oregon. Oregon is one of the few states in America that does not charge sales taxes. Google will charge you sales tax in addition to the price of the phone if you ship it to a state that includes taxes.

Signing up for a COMGateway account is free - once you have signed up, they will give you a unique address.

Google Checkout Account

The next step is organising yourself a Google checkout account - again signing up is free. A google checkout account is basically linking a GMail account to a credit card. I had a GMail account already, so I just signed in using the email address, and followed the steps to add the credit card details. The only step here that may not be obvious is the shipping addresses. I suggest that you setup your default shipping address as your normal Australian address, and fill in the address that your freight forwarder has given you as an alternative shipping address. There have been reports of Google suspending accounts to verify the credit card details before allowing purchases to be made. It is reported that this process can take anywhere from 24hrs to a week.

US IP Address

Once you have the US address and the Google Checkout account sorted out, you will need a way to have Google think you are using a computer located in the US. To overcome this, I installed HotSpot Shield - http://www.hotspotshield.com/. Download & install it, once the installer has finished a new tray icon will appear by the clock, and a new webpage will open with a large Connect / Disconnect button will appear. When you connect, your machine will connect to a US server via a VPN connection, and your internet browsing will be done via this VPN link. Because the VPN server is in the US, Google Checkout will think your machine is in the US too!

Now its just a matter of going back to the www.google.com/phone page and follow the prompts to buy the phone. Just remember to select your freight forwarder (in my case COMGateway) address as your shipping address!

Once the purchase has been made you can disconnect the Hotspot Shield connection and uninstall the program.

My Nexus One's Trip

For those playing along at home, I've made a map of my phone's travels, and listed the package tracking details so you can see how long it took.

View My Nexus One's Trip in a larger map

Mar 03, 2010  11:10 AM   Shipment information sent to FedEx

Mar 04, 2010  12:55 AM   Indianapolis, IN / Departed FedEx location

Mar 04, 2010  03:06 AM   Memphis, TN / Departed FedEx location

Mar 04, 2010  11:53 AM   Portland, OR / Delivered

Mar 05, 2010  00:01 AM   San Francisco, CA / Departed Facility

Mar 08, 2010  09:29 PM   Hong Kong / Departed Facility

Mar 10, 2010  11:46 AM   Adelaide, AUS / Delivered

This box has travelled 22,000kms, so I expected it to look a bit banged up :)

References:

Whirlpool.net.au: http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=Google_Phone