Then again, as others have said, they can probably get more out of folks for such things as:
- More minutes
- More data
- More SMS Texts.
Exactly! Everybody wants these customers - interested in the newest gadgets, ample money to spend, actually using data services. This should be the first mobile to receive 600 EUR in subsidies in history, and it further proofs that Apple's approach was wrong (for Europe). Instead of dealing with law suits, bad press and upset fans - if they would have allowed the market to fix the conditions, they would sell more, not less and they would get all the money at once - not over 24 months. They could get even more, if they sell and service it themselves - Apple is cool, Apple is a selling point, people want to be Apple customers, not T-Mobile customers.
Just to add to your above points: debitel is also reselling regular phone lines and DSL tariffs, every new customer in the mailing list is money, in this case: big money.
My reaction is "who cares." Now that I have been using VVM, it seems like such an obvious and simple feature that it makes you wonder, "how come no one else thought of something similar before?" Apple did.
That's a long-winded way of saying that Apple will be on to something else by the time that these mobile phone providers get to some type of VVM knockoff.
Someone at a carrier here in the UK I know (not O2) described the tech behind VVM as being a modified IMAP mail server. Each voice message is stored as you would an email on a server. You place a VVM server on the internet and the iPhone connects to it over wifi/gprs/edge and downloads it as it would email.
That sounds perfectly simple to implement. Whether the protocol actually IS IMAP or not I don't know, but it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to do. IMAP IDLE could even do PUSH Voicemail.
This should be the first mobile to receive 600 EUR in subsidies in history, and it further proofs that Apple's approach was wrong (for Europe).
I'm pretty sure it's not. The N95 (as we always use as an example) cost way over ?600 unlocked when it first came out and it's available free on tariffs similar to the iPhone.
I'm pretty sure it's not. The N95 (as we always use as an example) cost way over €600 unlocked when it first came out and it's available free on tariffs similar to the iPhone.
When it (the N95) first came out, no carrier was offering it subsidised (most did not offer it at all). In the meantime they do offer it, but the average street price is down to 460 EUR. At a street price of 460 EUR T-Mobile is offering it for 229.95 EUR with a 24 month contract - so, the subsidy is 230 EUR, not 600.
When it (the N95) first came out, no carrier was offering it subsidised (most did not offer it at all). In the meantime they do offer it, but the average street price is down to 460 EUR. At a street price of 460 EUR T-Mobile is offering it for 229.95 EUR with a 24 month contract - so, the subsidy is 230 EUR, not 600.
Ok, let's pick a current deal...
N95 8GB Unlocked at Expansys... £569.95 or about €795
There are plenty of deals for a completely subsidised N95 8GB. I just picked Vodafone at random.
N95 8GB with 18 month contract. 750 minutes, 500 text. Free phone. £40 a month. (£20 for first three months saving you £60). 120MB a month data on Vodafone is £7.50. You're not limited to just web and you can use it as a modem - useful. No free hotspot access - who cares. No Visual Voicemail - who cares.
Cost of iPhone on a similar O2 tariff (150 minutes talk less than Vodafone) - £1079.
Cost of N95 8GB as above - £795. Don't want data - £660. Don't want a contract - £480 (if you ask nice and buy a £20 PAYG credit). Ie. less than half the price of an iPhone and no commitments. Stick it on eBay after 3 months use if you don't like it.
I could have chosen O2 and an older N95 (the non 8GB version - seems fair - it's as old as an iPhone even if it's tech is better) where it's free with a £35 a month tariff (1000 texts and 600 minutes). Add on unlimited web browsing at £7.50. That's £765 from the same carrier as opposed to £1079 with half the number of text messages.
You'd have to have a serious girlfriend problem to get through 1000 text messages I guess, so arguably Cloud access is more useful.
OK, I see. Seems like subsidies in the UK are much more severe than in Germany. Even with top of the price-list models like the E90 I cannot find any deal exceeding 250 EUR in subsidies here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aegisdesign
You'd have to have a serious girlfriend problem to get through 1000 text messages I guess, so arguably Cloud access is more useful.
Please do not remind me - I had a story like that about a year ago. I still have her sausage dog. A Cloud and a harp sometimes do sound desirable
Yeah, except that it was idiot government intervention that even allowed this to happen. Without it, we would have been stuck with t-mobile only. It seems to me this is a case of the government ensuring a free market.
You will find that this was NOT a government intervention but a court ruling. Unless you start to question the need of an independant judiciary system, and I as a German am proud of ours, you should be happy about it too.
You might disagree with some decisions but the fact that CAN disagree and are NOT thrown into jail or shot (Russia, China anyone ?) is called freedom and democracy.
You will find that this was NOT a government intervention but a court ruling. Unless you start to question the need of an independant judiciary system, and I as a German am proud of ours, you should be happy about it too.
You might disagree with some decisions but the fact that CAN disagree and are NOT thrown into jail or shot (Russia, China anyone ?) is called freedom and democracy.
Eh, I call it a government intervention because the judge made his ruling on the basis of a law enacted by the government. Besides, the judiciary is part of the government rather than the free market that the original poster referred to.
And I don't think you understood my post. I am happy about it. I don't know how any consumer could be unhappy about it. My use of "idiot" was just copying the post I was responding to.
Eh, I call it a government intervention because the judge made his ruling on the basis of a law enacted by the government. Besides, the judiciary is part of the government rather than the free market that the original poster referred to.
And I don't think you understood my post. I am happy about it. I don't know how any consumer could be unhappy about it. My use of "idiot" was just copying the post I was responding to.
OK I guess I owe you an apology in this case and I should have directed my blast at cameronj.
I do however have to stress that the judiciary is independent from any government -especially on the lower levels. That a constitutional judge will carry some form of party ticket is clear (although in most cases they leave it at the door).
But in any modern democracy the judiciary, the executive and the legislative are independent from each other. That is what makes us (western) democracies. That a judge then upholds a law passed by a democratically elected government (hence by the people) is more then obvious as well.
One may moan as much as one wants - but these things happen because we do not live in a state of anarchy.
By reading some of these posts one might think that Europe is/has no free market at all. We do - really. But we do have laws too. Laws which were passed by members of parliament, who in turn were elected by the people. And -and this has always been my bottom line- when you come to Europe you have to respect our laws as much as you expect me to respect the laws of your country when I come to them.
Hell - if I misbehave in the US or dont pay a ticket, the next time I come to the US I might be refused entry and shipped back home...you would not get this the other way round BTW....
Comments
Then again, as others have said, they can probably get more out of folks for such things as:
- More minutes
- More data
- More SMS Texts.
Exactly! Everybody wants these customers - interested in the newest gadgets, ample money to spend, actually using data services. This should be the first mobile to receive 600 EUR in subsidies in history, and it further proofs that Apple's approach was wrong (for Europe). Instead of dealing with law suits, bad press and upset fans - if they would have allowed the market to fix the conditions, they would sell more, not less and they would get all the money at once - not over 24 months. They could get even more, if they sell and service it themselves - Apple is cool, Apple is a selling point, people want to be Apple customers, not T-Mobile customers.
Just to add to your above points: debitel is also reselling regular phone lines and DSL tariffs, every new customer in the mailing list is money, in this case: big money.
My reaction is "who cares." Now that I have been using VVM, it seems like such an obvious and simple feature that it makes you wonder, "how come no one else thought of something similar before?" Apple did.
That's a long-winded way of saying that Apple will be on to something else by the time that these mobile phone providers get to some type of VVM knockoff.
Someone at a carrier here in the UK I know (not O2) described the tech behind VVM as being a modified IMAP mail server. Each voice message is stored as you would an email on a server. You place a VVM server on the internet and the iPhone connects to it over wifi/gprs/edge and downloads it as it would email.
That sounds perfectly simple to implement. Whether the protocol actually IS IMAP or not I don't know, but it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to do. IMAP IDLE could even do PUSH Voicemail.
This should be the first mobile to receive 600 EUR in subsidies in history, and it further proofs that Apple's approach was wrong (for Europe).
I'm pretty sure it's not. The N95 (as we always use as an example) cost way over ?600 unlocked when it first came out and it's available free on tariffs similar to the iPhone.
I'm pretty sure it's not. The N95 (as we always use as an example) cost way over €600 unlocked when it first came out and it's available free on tariffs similar to the iPhone.
When it (the N95) first came out, no carrier was offering it subsidised (most did not offer it at all). In the meantime they do offer it, but the average street price is down to 460 EUR. At a street price of 460 EUR T-Mobile is offering it for 229.95 EUR with a 24 month contract - so, the subsidy is 230 EUR, not 600.
When it (the N95) first came out, no carrier was offering it subsidised (most did not offer it at all). In the meantime they do offer it, but the average street price is down to 460 EUR. At a street price of 460 EUR T-Mobile is offering it for 229.95 EUR with a 24 month contract - so, the subsidy is 230 EUR, not 600.
Ok, let's pick a current deal...
N95 8GB Unlocked at Expansys... £569.95 or about €795
http://www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=158600
There are plenty of deals for a completely subsidised N95 8GB. I just picked Vodafone at random.
N95 8GB with 18 month contract. 750 minutes, 500 text. Free phone. £40 a month. (£20 for first three months saving you £60). 120MB a month data on Vodafone is £7.50. You're not limited to just web and you can use it as a modem - useful. No free hotspot access - who cares. No Visual Voicemail - who cares.
Cost of iPhone on a similar O2 tariff (150 minutes talk less than Vodafone) - £1079.
Cost of N95 8GB as above - £795. Don't want data - £660. Don't want a contract - £480 (if you ask nice and buy a £20 PAYG credit). Ie. less than half the price of an iPhone and no commitments. Stick it on eBay after 3 months use if you don't like it.
I could have chosen O2 and an older N95 (the non 8GB version - seems fair - it's as old as an iPhone even if it's tech is better) where it's free with a £35 a month tariff (1000 texts and 600 minutes). Add on unlimited web browsing at £7.50. That's £765 from the same carrier as opposed to £1079 with half the number of text messages.
You'd have to have a serious girlfriend problem to get through 1000 text messages I guess, so arguably Cloud access is more useful.
Ok, let's pick a current deal...
...
OK, I see. Seems like subsidies in the UK are much more severe than in Germany. Even with top of the price-list models like the E90 I cannot find any deal exceeding 250 EUR in subsidies here.
You'd have to have a serious girlfriend problem to get through 1000 text messages I guess, so arguably Cloud access is more useful.
Yeah, except that it was idiot government intervention that even allowed this to happen. Without it, we would have been stuck with t-mobile only. It seems to me this is a case of the government ensuring a free market.
You will find that this was NOT a government intervention but a court ruling. Unless you start to question the need of an independant judiciary system, and I as a German am proud of ours, you should be happy about it too.
You might disagree with some decisions but the fact that CAN disagree and are NOT thrown into jail or shot (Russia, China anyone ?) is called freedom and democracy.
You will find that this was NOT a government intervention but a court ruling. Unless you start to question the need of an independant judiciary system, and I as a German am proud of ours, you should be happy about it too.
You might disagree with some decisions but the fact that CAN disagree and are NOT thrown into jail or shot (Russia, China anyone ?) is called freedom and democracy.
Eh, I call it a government intervention because the judge made his ruling on the basis of a law enacted by the government. Besides, the judiciary is part of the government rather than the free market that the original poster referred to.
And I don't think you understood my post. I am happy about it. I don't know how any consumer could be unhappy about it. My use of "idiot" was just copying the post I was responding to.
Eh, I call it a government intervention because the judge made his ruling on the basis of a law enacted by the government. Besides, the judiciary is part of the government rather than the free market that the original poster referred to.
And I don't think you understood my post. I am happy about it. I don't know how any consumer could be unhappy about it. My use of "idiot" was just copying the post I was responding to.
OK I guess I owe you an apology in this case and I should have directed my blast at cameronj.
I do however have to stress that the judiciary is independent from any government -especially on the lower levels. That a constitutional judge will carry some form of party ticket is clear (although in most cases they leave it at the door).
But in any modern democracy the judiciary, the executive and the legislative are independent from each other. That is what makes us (western) democracies. That a judge then upholds a law passed by a democratically elected government (hence by the people) is more then obvious as well.
One may moan as much as one wants - but these things happen because we do not live in a state of anarchy.
By reading some of these posts one might think that Europe is/has no free market at all. We do - really. But we do have laws too. Laws which were passed by members of parliament, who in turn were elected by the people. And -and this has always been my bottom line- when you come to Europe you have to respect our laws as much as you expect me to respect the laws of your country when I come to them.
Hell - if I misbehave in the US or dont pay a ticket, the next time I come to the US I might be refused entry and shipped back home...you would not get this the other way round BTW....