O2 UK sets pay-as-you-go iPhone 3G prices, launch info
O2 has removed one of the barriers to wider iPhone 3G adoption in Britain with news on Monday of when and how it will offer its Pay & Go prepaid service for Apple's cellphone.
The official pricing for the unsubsidized phones is now much higher than for the devices on contract and will require £350 ($631) for an 8GB iPhone 3G and £400 ($721) for the 16GB version.
The service itself expectedly drops the regular monthly subscription fees but offers a certain amount of benefits depending on the money put into the account each month. Paying between £10 and £14 ($18 to $25) each month nets a bonus 500 minutes of call time to any UK home phone or O2 cellphone; paying between £15 and £29 adds 1,000 minutes under the same terms, while £30 or more provides unlimited calls.
Unlimited Internet access within the UK, including 3G and O2 Wi-Fi, is free for the first year of service but will cost £10 per month afterwards. Text messages aren't included with the plan, however, and cost 10p each inside the UK. Calls past the prepaid amount cost 5p per minute.
O2 also cautions possible customers that the iPhone's signature Visual Voicemail and on-the-fly call merging also aren't available through the Pay & Go plan.
Prepaid phones will be available on September 16th from both O2 itself as well as Apple retail stores and Carphone Warehouse.
The move represents a significant scaling back from briefly revealed rates in June and steer customers towards O2's more profitable contract plans, which typically sell an 8GB iPhone for just £99 ($178) but make up for the subsidized price by requiring a minimum £30 per month for service over the next 18 months. More frequent users also receive the iPhone for free with some premium subscription plans.
Pay-as-you-go service is nonetheless widely seen as necessary for the UK, where prepaid devices are more popular for customers traveling to mainland Europe.
The official pricing for the unsubsidized phones is now much higher than for the devices on contract and will require £350 ($631) for an 8GB iPhone 3G and £400 ($721) for the 16GB version.
The service itself expectedly drops the regular monthly subscription fees but offers a certain amount of benefits depending on the money put into the account each month. Paying between £10 and £14 ($18 to $25) each month nets a bonus 500 minutes of call time to any UK home phone or O2 cellphone; paying between £15 and £29 adds 1,000 minutes under the same terms, while £30 or more provides unlimited calls.
Unlimited Internet access within the UK, including 3G and O2 Wi-Fi, is free for the first year of service but will cost £10 per month afterwards. Text messages aren't included with the plan, however, and cost 10p each inside the UK. Calls past the prepaid amount cost 5p per minute.
O2 also cautions possible customers that the iPhone's signature Visual Voicemail and on-the-fly call merging also aren't available through the Pay & Go plan.
Prepaid phones will be available on September 16th from both O2 itself as well as Apple retail stores and Carphone Warehouse.
The move represents a significant scaling back from briefly revealed rates in June and steer customers towards O2's more profitable contract plans, which typically sell an 8GB iPhone for just £99 ($178) but make up for the subsidized price by requiring a minimum £30 per month for service over the next 18 months. More frequent users also receive the iPhone for free with some premium subscription plans.
Pay-as-you-go service is nonetheless widely seen as necessary for the UK, where prepaid devices are more popular for customers traveling to mainland Europe.
Comments
The default tariff on a SIM on O2 Pay and Go is called 'Favourite Places' but you can pick from any of the others too...
http://www.o2.co.uk/mobilestariffs/t...o/paygotariffs
You can change tariffs once per month so you could go from the 500 free minutes from home tariff to the unlimited texts for £10 tariff or whatever suits.
Then there are also the Bolt Ons...
http://www.o2.co.uk/mobilestariffs/t...ygoboltons0153
It's complex but I reckon it might still work out cheaper for some people to use Pay & Go than pay for a contract.
At these prices, I hope the phones are unlocked. Does anyone know?
Yeah, wondering same thing.
Booooooo!!!!
Boooooo what?
Most networks allow you to get an unlock code for a pay as you go at anytime, so you *should* be able to buy the phone and get it unlocked the second you get home with it. Although I have a feeling that O2 will have tweaked the terms and conditions in relation to the iPhone.
I'm guessing that iPhones will only be unlocked where laws require it. Apple are being real bastards here.
Text messages are such a rip off. I remember when they were free. Certainly the pricing means they are richly profitable for the phone companies. The 200ish bytes they involve must really tax their networks.
Not even. They are sent out of band on the D-Channel (well for GSM networks anyway). Soooo, they are sent to an already waiting device. SMS are the operators cash cows.
Most networks allow you to get an unlock code for a pay as you go at anytime, so you *should* be able to buy the phone and get it unlocked the second you get home with it. Although I have a feeling that O2 will have tweaked the terms and conditions in relation to the iPhone.
Nope, nope, nope.
Here in FInland you pay ?519 for an iPhone that stays locked for 2 years. Sonera customers are so pissed off that the cable operator and the other operators are seeing people jump ship from Sonera for all other services while staying on the iPhone contract. Many are saying that once the 2 years are up, they will leave Sonera for ever. They screwed the pooch on this one for sure. While my iPhone was a "loner" because Sonera could not "give" it to me, I am still stuck on Sonera but if I was forced into this, I would leave as soon as the time limit was up as well.
Nope, nope, nope.
Here in FInland you pay ?519 for an iPhone that stays locked for 2 years. Sonera customers are so pissed off that the cable operator and the other operators are seeing people jump ship from Sonera for all other services while staying on the iPhone contract. Many are saying that once the 2 years are up, they will leave Sonera for ever. They screwed the pooch on this one for sure. While my iPhone was a "loner" because Sonera could not "give" it to me, I am still stuck on Sonera but if I was forced into this, I would leave as soon as the time limit was up as well.
Great reply if we were talking about Finland, but we're talking about the UK, so my statement still stands. There's no 'nope, nope, nope' about it!
Great reply if we were talking about Finland, but we're talking about the UK, so my statement still stands. There's no 'nope, nope, nope' about it!
I was commenting on the
Most networks allow you to get an unlock code for a pay as you go at anytime
statement you made. I did not know it pertained only to the UK.
I understand that in Greece an unsubsidized/unlocked iPhone is available for 499 Euro. Hopefully the UK one is the same, and hopefully Apple/ATT will get around to realizing this is worth doing in the US.
Where? This is the first news I hear about this. Any links? The last I heard was that the cheapest legaly unlocked iPhones were more like 1000 dollars or so.
Can someone across the pond enlighten me on 02's services... I went to their website and it appears that you can't get any decent smartphone under their pay-and-go plans. All the high-end Nokia, Blackberry, HTC, etc smartphones only appear on the monthly contract section. Is this really their policy in general --- that you can only use specific models on pay-and-go service --- or is that just limited to their website?
No, O2 don't currently sell any high end Nokia, HTC or Blackberry phones on pay as you go. If you want one of those, you'd either have to buy one elsewhere, or get an O2 contract phone.
Can someone across the pond enlighten me on 02's services... I went to their website and it appears that you can't get any decent smartphone under their pay-and-go plans. All the high-end Nokia, Blackberry, HTC, etc smartphones only appear on the monthly contract section. Is this really their policy in general --- that you can only use specific models on pay-and-go service --- or is that just limited to their website?
They'll only SELL you a non-smartphone on their website with Pay&Go although in store they'll bend that rule if you ask them. You can USE any phone on Pay&Go - just switch the SIM and provided the phone is unlocked or an O2 phone, it should work.
Other retailers, such as the Carphone Warehouse for example, will sell you a Nokia N95 on O2 Pay & Go - http://shop.carphonewarehouse.com/pa...lack/o2/pagcn/ - for £449.95 so the iPhone at £349 isn't bad at all, especially with it's free data for a year.
Blackberrrys don't really make sense on Pay&Go since you have to have the monthly Blackberry service and they aren't very popular in the UK, neither are HTC or the Motorola windows phones.
Typically, Pay&Go phones are bought by people with only occasional usage or usage where you might have bursts of activity and then none. It's not the type of contract for a smartphone user generally. For me however, where most of my calls are incoming (ie. free), I rarely text (incoming texts are free in the UK) but I need a decent PDA still and I'm usually at home where I work with my own wifi network, a Pay&Go Smartphone makes a lot of sense.
Also, In the UK, we have a pretty open market with retailers like Carphone Warehouse, Phones4U, TheLink, supermarkets and other independent stores able to sell all sorts of phones on all sorts of tariffs from all carriers. We don't generally have particular models tied to a carrier or store. The iPhone bucks that. Hopefully Apple will stop this silly US practice in the UK and allow some competition over the iPhone pricing.
Where? This is the first news I hear about this. Any links? The last I heard was that the cheapest legaly unlocked iPhones were more like 1000 dollars or so.
http://www.vodafone.gr/portal/client...etsList.action
then click on the English link to see it in English. If you click on Select, it shows the 499 Euro as the price without connection. I called Vodafone when in Greece last week and at least that rep said it was unlocked, though maybe they didn't know the difference. If someone there now can double check it would be great.
Also this:
http://www.vodafone.gr/portal/client...ategoryId=406#
http://www.vodafone.gr/portal/client...etsList.action
then click on the English link to see it in English. If you click on Select, it shows the 499 Euro as the price without connection. I called Vodafone when in Greece last week and at least that rep said it was unlocked, though maybe they didn't know the difference. If someone there now can double check it would be great.
Also this:
http://www.vodafone.gr/portal/client...ategoryId=406#
Unsubsidized yes, but I'm not sure that it's unlocked.