So explain to me why, when I worked in the Bondi store in Australia where there were a lot of UK tourists buying PAYG SIM's who often found they had locked phones from Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile?
This is going back to 2003, across brands both PAYG and contract.
Why is there a bustling market for getting phones unlocked £5-£20 are the going rates depending on where you get it done.
Then how many of these data plans you talk about were links to services via the phone companies network e.g. Vodafone Live free browsing as long as you stayed within the site.
Then there's the Blackberry without paying for the RIM services it's a phone with basic PDA functionality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amorya
Their definition:
a smartphone is a platform device that allows software to be installed
By the letter of that definition, the iPhone is now a smartphone.
We still already had that. Before the iPhone, T-mobile charged £7.50 a month for unlimited internet. (May have had a 2GB fair use cap or something.) Also, with the Nokias and their ilk, you could choose to buy the phone from a network (and get it cheaper, but locked) or from the manufacturer (and pay more but get it unlocked). With the iPhone, there is not that choice.
When the iPhone came out, you had to pay a larger price than usual and it was still locked! At least now the phone is free, as contract phones usually are.
The thing with the UK phone market is, you pay for the service, it doesn't matter what phone you use on it. So if I bought myself an unlocked smartphone and stuck my SIM card in it, I could use my existing contract, whatever the rates are. The notion of paying more to use a smartphone is really odd!
Yes, that's true, but there's nothing to stop you swapping around afterwards. (In fact, that's not usual for blackberries; my father just bought one for my sister, on Orange, and the plan he chose was the best value that Orange did.)
My point is the iPhone's business model doesn't fit very well with UK practices. It's really rare to find a contract tied to a device, but they try it with the iPhone. People still get it, because the contract's not too bad and the phone's really good. But it's certainly not making the industry any more consumer-friendly: less so, in fact, since competition usually brings the price right down!
This is contrary to the reports about the UK mobile industry back in 2007 when the iPhone was launched. Are you saying its always been this way?
No service provider has ever minded if you use a different phone to the one they give you free. I've been doing that since the 90s. It's explicitly supported (I got tech support for a data connection back in the day, when my contract had come with a non-data phone. I said I'd upgraded my phone, they asked what to, then got on with helping me.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by hill60
So explain to me why, when I worked in the Bondi store in Australia where there were a lot of UK tourists buying PAYG SIM's who often found they had locked phones from Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile?
This is going back to 2003, across brands both PAYG and contract.
Why is there a bustling market for getting phones unlocked £5-£20 are the going rates depending on where you get it done.
The phones you get from the networks are locked. That doesn't stop you unlocking them (it's fully legal), and doesn't stop you using a non-locked phone you acquired elsewhere.
Quote:
Then how many of these data plans you talk about were links to services via the phone companies network e.g. Vodafone Live free browsing as long as you stayed within the site.
None. I wouldn't bother mentioning things like that: it's so rubbish as to be useless! We're talking about proper data plans.
In Australia it's different, up until around two years ago data bundles could only be added to business plans, the costs were a lot higher around $A30 for 100MB, consumers had to make do with a subscription to limited sites via Vodafone Live, Optus Zoo, Telstra Bigpond etc some of these even charged for data on top.
Since the iPhone 3G was launched on Vodafone Australia that has dropped to $A20 for 250MB-2GB (depending on voice+Internet plan) and $A9.95 for 100MB as an add-on in a few days the pricing is changing to $A20 for 1-2GB and $A9.95 for 200MB.
We never had the first iPhone here the introduction of the iPhone 3G has coincided with a marked drop in general data prices.
Back in the nineties that 14.4 WAP sucked balls, you were charged by time as you had to dial in, 2.5G GPRS only came out in around 2001-2 with the Ericsson T39 being the first handset I remember which supported it.
btw my iPhone is unlocked it's fully legal here and the process is almost exactly the same as for any other phone, the only difference is you restore in iTunes instead of entering a code, then again all our major carriers sell iPhones, so I guess that's one of the benefits of competition and our legislation.
The only phone which can't be unlocked is the Blackberry Storm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amorya
No service provider has ever minded if you use a different phone to the one they give you free. I've been doing that since the 90s. It's explicitly supported (I got tech support for a data connection back in the day, when my contract had come with a non-data phone. I said I'd upgraded my phone, they asked what to, then got on with helping me.)
The phones you get from the networks are locked. That doesn't stop you unlocking them (it's fully legal), and doesn't stop you using a non-locked phone you acquired elsewhere.
None. I wouldn't bother mentioning things like that: it's so rubbish as to be useless! We're talking about proper data plans.
Comments
This is going back to 2003, across brands both PAYG and contract.
Why is there a bustling market for getting phones unlocked £5-£20 are the going rates depending on where you get it done.
Then how many of these data plans you talk about were links to services via the phone companies network e.g. Vodafone Live free browsing as long as you stayed within the site.
Then there's the Blackberry without paying for the RIM services it's a phone with basic PDA functionality.
Their definition:
a smartphone is a platform device that allows software to be installed
By the letter of that definition, the iPhone is now a smartphone.
We still already had that. Before the iPhone, T-mobile charged £7.50 a month for unlimited internet. (May have had a 2GB fair use cap or something.) Also, with the Nokias and their ilk, you could choose to buy the phone from a network (and get it cheaper, but locked) or from the manufacturer (and pay more but get it unlocked). With the iPhone, there is not that choice.
When the iPhone came out, you had to pay a larger price than usual and it was still locked! At least now the phone is free, as contract phones usually are.
The thing with the UK phone market is, you pay for the service, it doesn't matter what phone you use on it. So if I bought myself an unlocked smartphone and stuck my SIM card in it, I could use my existing contract, whatever the rates are. The notion of paying more to use a smartphone is really odd!
Yes, that's true, but there's nothing to stop you swapping around afterwards. (In fact, that's not usual for blackberries; my father just bought one for my sister, on Orange, and the plan he chose was the best value that Orange did.)
My point is the iPhone's business model doesn't fit very well with UK practices. It's really rare to find a contract tied to a device, but they try it with the iPhone. People still get it, because the contract's not too bad and the phone's really good. But it's certainly not making the industry any more consumer-friendly: less so, in fact, since competition usually brings the price right down!
Amorya
This is contrary to the reports about the UK mobile industry back in 2007 when the iPhone was launched. Are you saying its always been this way?
No service provider has ever minded if you use a different phone to the one they give you free. I've been doing that since the 90s. It's explicitly supported (I got tech support for a data connection back in the day, when my contract had come with a non-data phone. I said I'd upgraded my phone, they asked what to, then got on with helping me.)
So explain to me why, when I worked in the Bondi store in Australia where there were a lot of UK tourists buying PAYG SIM's who often found they had locked phones from Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile?
This is going back to 2003, across brands both PAYG and contract.
Why is there a bustling market for getting phones unlocked £5-£20 are the going rates depending on where you get it done.
The phones you get from the networks are locked. That doesn't stop you unlocking them (it's fully legal), and doesn't stop you using a non-locked phone you acquired elsewhere.
Then how many of these data plans you talk about were links to services via the phone companies network e.g. Vodafone Live free browsing as long as you stayed within the site.
None. I wouldn't bother mentioning things like that: it's so rubbish as to be useless! We're talking about proper data plans.
Amorya
Since the iPhone 3G was launched on Vodafone Australia that has dropped to $A20 for 250MB-2GB (depending on voice+Internet plan) and $A9.95 for 100MB as an add-on in a few days the pricing is changing to $A20 for 1-2GB and $A9.95 for 200MB.
We never had the first iPhone here the introduction of the iPhone 3G has coincided with a marked drop in general data prices.
Back in the nineties that 14.4 WAP sucked balls, you were charged by time as you had to dial in, 2.5G GPRS only came out in around 2001-2 with the Ericsson T39 being the first handset I remember which supported it.
btw my iPhone is unlocked it's fully legal here and the process is almost exactly the same as for any other phone, the only difference is you restore in iTunes instead of entering a code, then again all our major carriers sell iPhones, so I guess that's one of the benefits of competition and our legislation.
The only phone which can't be unlocked is the Blackberry Storm.
No service provider has ever minded if you use a different phone to the one they give you free. I've been doing that since the 90s. It's explicitly supported (I got tech support for a data connection back in the day, when my contract had come with a non-data phone. I said I'd upgraded my phone, they asked what to, then got on with helping me.)
The phones you get from the networks are locked. That doesn't stop you unlocking them (it's fully legal), and doesn't stop you using a non-locked phone you acquired elsewhere.
None. I wouldn't bother mentioning things like that: it's so rubbish as to be useless! We're talking about proper data plans.
Amorya