iPhone 3G plans to start at $55 in Austria, $47 in Belgium

[AppleInsider]

T-Mobile Austria will sell the next generation of the iPhone with subsidized pricing depending on the choice of plans, which start at $55 per month. Belgians will have a less expensive $30 rate but, in an unusual twist from local laws, have little option but to buy a pricier unlocked Apple device.

T-Mobile Austria

Austria's original provider for iPhone 3G, T-Mobile, plans to effectively carry over its existing plans for the now discontinued original iPhone, albeit with an important change in pricing for the devices.

A standard Classic plan will offer 1,000 minutes of calling time to any mobile network, 3GB of data per month, Visual Voicemail, and free T-Mobile Wi-Fi for a special rate of €35 ($55) per month for the first 10,000 customers. The plan increases to €39 ($61) per month for all other users and charges 15 Euro cents for every extra minute of voice, 25 cents for every extra SMS, and 10 cents for every megabyte past the data limit.

Subscribers buying an iPhone 3G with the Classic plan pay either €149 ($234) for an 8GB model or €229 ($360) for a 16GB version.

Those opting for the Supreme plan get the same amount of minutes, data, and support for voicemail and Wi-Fi, but can make calls at no extra cost to any type of network and receive 1,000 text messages per month. The plan normally costs €55 ($86) per month but is dropping to €45 ($71) per month for any of the first 10,000 users opting for the premium plan.

The iPhone itself costs less with these plans: an 8GB unit is priced at €99 ($156), while the 16GB model sells for €179 ($281).



Mobistar of Belgium

For most iPhone 3G customers in Belgium, who initially have to sign up with Mobistar, the primary obstacle will be the price of the handset.

Legislation in Belgium prevents Mobistar from selling any cellphone locked to its own network. While this gives customers the freedom to switch to another provider or temporarily use prepaid service, it also raises the price, according to the carrier. An 8GB iPhone 3G costs €525 ($826) while choosing a 16GB flagship boosts that price to €615 ($967) -- a price that may stand as the most expensive for any carrier.

Its calling plans are also not as broad as in some countries. An entry plan at €30 ($47) gives 180 minutes of calling time and 300 text messages, but just 200MB of data. Picking the mid-range €45 ($71) plan doubles the calling time and text to 360 minutes and 600 messages respectively while supplying 500MB of data every month. The best plan, at €60 ($94) per month, gives 540 minutes for calls and 900 messages but sets a 1GB cap for data.

Passing over any of the limits also incurs overage fees. Calls cost 20 Euro cents per minute over the limit, while text costs 12 cents a message and data is two cents for every additional megabyte.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[franciscoandre]

I'd love to able to get the Austrian plan! Instead, I have Vodafone... Yupi

[dreyfus2]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Austria's sole provider for iPhone 3G, T-Mobile, ...

Well, this is not correct. Orange Austria (ONE) will also carry the iPhone in Austria, info here: http://www.one.at/iphone

[Dauphin]

At least in belgium we get it seem free, and i bet that in the coming days we'll see iphone plans from the other 2 big carriers, proximus and base, give the fact that we already have 12000 iphones 1.0 HACKED running on our networks... now the real question is: is it globally sim unlocked or does it have a regional/land simlock on it? I called today 3 mobistar shops and all of them answered the same, the iPhone is simlock free and in belgium it means that it will be GLOBALLY unlocked, now how much would you be willing to pay for a fully unlocked iphone, with apple and carrier warranty ??? plus for the prices of the high end smart phones in the belgian market, that is not a bad price at all, if you recall that when the nokia N95 came on the market it was 690 euros...

[winterspan]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

For most iPhone 3G customers in Belgium, who initially have to sign up with Mobistar, the primary obstacle will be the price of the handset.

Legislation in Belgium prevents Mobistar from selling any cellphone locked to its own network. While this gives customers the freedom to switch to another provider or temporarily use prepaid service, it also raises the price, according to the carrier. An 8GB iPhone 3G costs €525 ($826) while choosing a 16GB flagship boosts that price to €615 ($967) -- a price that may stand as the most expensive for any carrier.

Its calling plans are also not as broad as in some countries. An entry plan at €30 ($47) gives 180 minutes of calling time and 300 text messages, but just 200MB of data. Picking the mid-range €45 ($71) plan doubles the calling time and text to 360 minutes and 600 messages respectively while supplying 500MB of data every month. The best plan, at €60 ($94) per month, gives 540 minutes for calls and 900 messages but sets a 1GB cap for data.

Passing over any of the limits also incurs overage fees. Calls cost 20 Euro cents per minute over the limit, while text costs 12 cents a message and data is two cents for every additional megabyte.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

The unlocked law with Belgium is easy to understand, but where are these insane prices coming from? What are the prices of no-contract handsets in other European countries? I understand that traditionally Apple has always somewhat screwed the Europeans (plus tariffs, tax etc) by retailing Apple products at the same unit price in both US Dollars and Euros, even though the Euro is worth 1.5x USD. Is this the case here, is Apple is gouging the hell out of the the European carriers (or Belgium in particular) for the handsets?
How much do you Europeans pay for similar no-contract, high-end smartphones like the N95 8GB in Euros?


Also, the Austria prices look good.

[dreyfus2]

Originally Posted by winterspan

The unlocked law with Belgium is easy to understand, but where are these insane prices coming from? What are the prices of no-contract handsets in other European countries? I understand that traditionally Apple has always somewhat screwed the Europeans (plus tariffs, tax etc) by retailing Apple products at the same unit price in both US Dollars and Euros, even though the Euro is worth 1.5x USD. Is this the case here, is Apple is gouging the hell out of the the European carriers (or Belgium in particular) for the handsets?
How much do you Europeans pay for similar no-contract, high-end smartphones like the N95 8GB in Euros?

Actually these prices in Belgium are excellent - they will have to close the borders to protect citizens with claustrophobia.

The measly Nokia 8800 (designer-phone which cannot do nothing and runs out of spunk after 35 minutes talk-time) costed me 1080 EUR when it came out, the Nokia N95 with 8GB was 750 EUR when it was released, I paid 970 EUR for the SE P910i when it was new etc. Compared to that the iPhone in Belgium is a bargain.

If you look further - prepaid 3G iPhones in Italy, Switzerland and the UK will be equally expensive or even more expensive and these are netlocked, so even after paying a substantial amount of money you would still have to resort to jailbreaking to use them abroad or with another provider.

[winpple]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

...
For most iPhone 3G customers in Belgium, who initially have to sign up with Mobistar, the primary obstacle will be the price of the handset.

Legislation in Belgium prevents Mobistar from selling any cellphone locked to its own network.

Really, what the legislation in Belgium prevents is not the sim-locking (this is allowed), what it prevents are joint sales of products and/or services. So it is forbidden to offer a subsidized phone (let's say at 200 EUR) while requiring the consumer to sign for a let's say 24 months plan.

Anybody can enter a Mobistar shop, buy an iPhone and get out, without signing a first plan or a new plan with them. The price is of course higher than the subsidized prices in other countries. Mobistar people say they chose NOT to sim-lock it, in an attempt to sell more units despite the higher price.

Compared to other non subsidized top smartphones, the price is not bad at all by the way.

Where I don't understand Mobistar is on the prices and conditions of the plans they offer. They call these plans "optimized for the iPhone" but agree to sign them for any other 3G device. Their prices are not *so* good and competitive, yet they require the consumer to sign for 24 months. The rates and conditions are even not as good as those of some operators in other countries, where along with those better rates, they get the subsidized iPhone. That leaves a bad taste and I'm sure those introductory offers will change quickly over the next months.

Also, the other two operators (or Proximus at least, because Base does NOT have a 3G network anyway) will most probably try to offer better plans to capture some customers.

[winpple]

Originally Posted by winterspan

The unlocked law with Belgium is easy to understand, but where are these insane prices coming from?

For this, see my other post about joint-sales being forbidden in Belgium, not sim-locked phones.

Originally Posted by winterspan

What are the prices of no-contract handsets in other European countries? I understand that traditionally Apple has always somewhat screwed the Europeans (plus tariffs, tax etc) by retailing Apple products at the same unit price in both US Dollars and Euros, even though the Euro is worth 1.5x USD. Is this the case here, is Apple is gouging the hell out of the the European carriers (or Belgium in particular) for the handsets?
How much do you Europeans pay for similar no-contract, high-end smartphones like the N95 8GB in Euros?

Let's take the announced price of an AT&T 8GB iPhone without contract (but sim-locked to AT&T anyway if I got it right), that is 599 USD (without taxes). Turn that in EUR at today rate, it gives 381 EUR. Add at least the value added tax (21%), it gives 461 EUR. This is not yet the right conversion from USD though because some import taxes (even though minimal) should be added too, but let's keep 461 EUR as the converted price. The Belgium price is set at 525 EUR, so only 64 EUR (nearly exactly 100 USD) higher than the AT&T price. Yet there are two differences: (1) the belgian one is sim-unlocked, the AT&T does not seem to be according to what I read, (2) the belgian one is covered by a full 2 years warranty (again a local law requiring this). So the extended warranty and sim-unlock *might* be seen as worth the additional 100 USD. I would say that if Mobistar or Apple try to sap our wallets, at least it's only by something like 50 to 100 USD and that might leave room too for some price reductions sooner or later.
I think 525 EUR is dull, 499 EUR would have been much more attractive as well as 599 EUR for the 16GB would have been too instead of a silly 615 EUR.

[pax85]

Hey, I'm from Austria. I can understand that our plans look nice to others, but the thing is, these plans are expensive compared to others. The same plan without the 3GB will cost you €19 ($30) at T-Mobile. So I'm sure as hell not gonna pay an extra €15 for 3GB which I don't really need.
I'd be more than happy with a plan which includes only 500 minutes, no SMS and just 1GB for €19-€25.
I was so hoping for such a plan, instead I have to wait for the next price reduction.

[ojala]

The iPhone 3G prices in Belgium are insane only when you haven't paid the real, unsubsidized price for a smartphone before. (Steve's $199 was just pure marketing)

www.expansys.be is a good place to check unsubsidized prices for phones:

HTC Touch Diamond, 570e
HTC S730, 365e
HTC TyTN II, 580e
Nokia E61i, 370e
Nokia E71, 455e
Nokia E90, 635e
Nokia N95 8G, 535e
Nokia N95, 385e
BlackBerry Bold 9000, 710e
BlackBerry Curve 8310, 430e

.. but one should remember that e.g. N95 is quite old model, even the N95 8G was available late 2007. All new phones with demand are sold for a premium at the beginning and the price starts to fall after a few months.

No doubt iPhone 3G will be much more widely available, most likely unlocked, and at noticeably different price by the end of the year (assuming that Apple is not killing the demand by limiting the production too much). The numbers for iPhone 3G available in each country have been suprisingly small compared to what e.g. Nokia pushes out when a factory starts to roll out a new model.

[Shindogu]

Close to Belgium, nice to compare:
In the Netherlands the prices are good, I'm getting one asap tomorrow morning.
The hype is going on here as well with one shop in Rotterdam opening the doors at midnight. My local Apple dealer has been taking pre-orders, but with no guarantee that they can provide the phone on launch day.

The most basic plan costs 30EUR/month, this includes 2048/284 Kbps internet connection with unlimited data. (!) It also includes 150 minutes of callingtime, and 150 textmessages.

The other two plans have the same characteristics, but include more callingtime and more textmessages. 45EUR/month for 300 minutes callingtime and 300 textmessages, 65 for 500 minutes callingtime and 500 textmessages.

Extra callingtime and textmessages cost 0,25EUR/minute or message.

On top of all of this there's a connectionfee of 52,50EUR, which is cut in half if you are a new contract for the company. Also the phone itself will have to be paid for, for the 8Gb version it goes from 79,95EUR for the 30EUR/month package to 1EUR for the othe two packages. The 16Gb version will set you back 159,95, 79,95 or 19,95 depending on the package.

All in all the 8Gb version will set me back 79,95(phone) + 52,50(setup) = 132,45EUR initial and then of course 30EUR/month. (360/year). This would translate to 208.15USD initial and 47,15USD/month.

( source: http://www.t-mobile.nl/iphone/tarieven.html , additional info on the linked pdf on that page if you can read Dutch )

[samab]

The Belgium law will be gone by September, just in time for the Christmas holiday sales.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j...9xM6gD91QF22G0