O2: The New AT&T

[drplokta]

Bah, O2 aren't giving existing iPhone users the subsidised price to upgrade to the 3G S until their existing contract expires. And they're charging £15 per month extra for tethering, for up to 3GB of data per month. Hope Netshare still works under iPhone OS 3.0.

Comments

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

The pricing is quite gougy, really - I have a PAYG iPhone, as I really don't do the calls to make it worh paying for a contract, and there's no tethering available on that anyway.

I shall stick with my Vodafone USB 3G modem - their network is better anyway.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Details don't seem to be up on their online store yet - where did you get this?

[drplokta]

From their online store. http://shop.o2.co.uk/update/paymonth.html & http://shop.o2.co.uk/update/internet.html

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

AH yes - got it now!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I bought a 3G dongle at Christmas rather to see how often I used it; complete with 12Gb of credit which lasts a year. (£99) It has been extremely useful on perhaps four occasions since then, and I think I've used about 200Mb of data in total. It's wildly crap to use in several respects -- whereas my guess is that the iPhone will work seamlessly tethered to Macs. But £15 is really too much for me.

I did think that the instant upgrades on iPhone was a fantastic deal; not surprising it hasn't lasted.

I can wait six months for the new phone, I'm sure I'll cope. Though having said years ago that I would never have another 18 month contract because I always get bitten by them, I'm pretty hacked off that here I am being bitten by another 18 month contract because I wasn't offered the choice of a 12 month contract.

The person who's really going to suffer is Marianne, who is desperate to get an iPhone on the trickle down effect. Though it would be dependent on being able to sort out a bundle for her -- Steven is on £10 for data+wifi, then pay as you go for phone, which works because he makes approx 10 minutes of calls a month. But M needs a big lumpy bundle of calls plus texts and that only seems to be an option for iPhone on the £35 pay monthly tariff which even the most indulgent mother is not about to go for (she's currently on a Virgin 300+300 for £10/month deal).

[drplokta]

Once your contract is up, you can have the old iPhone unlocked and put a Virgin SIM in it, so Marianne can have it on her existing contract. Virgin charge 30p per day for data, only on days that you use it, which is pretty reasonable.

Alternatively, when you get your new iPhone, put the old one on O2 PAYG and then swap SIMs, so that Marianne has the £35 contract rates and you're on PAYG, but Marianne's contract is actually paying for your new iPhone.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

ahah! Virgin will deliver data to an iPhone then? Does that work now? Though the previous iPhone is in unlock limbo because O2 won't unlock on the grounds that it never finished the contract. That would work better for S as well.

[drplokta]

I don't know for sure that Virgin will deliver data to an iPhone, but they support 3G data, so I can't see why it wouldn't work. Tethering and visual voicemail won't work, and I'm not sure about MMS.

[drplokta]

I expect you'll see an upgraded Touch in time for Christmas.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

It does look rather steep, especially compared with the offers to upgrade when the iPhone 3G came out.

I've still got an original iPhone, which I got in January last year on an 18-month contract, so it looks as if I'll be able to upgrade next month. I would have been tempted to upgrade to a 3G anyway for the GPS, 3G data and larger memory, so having more performance and a digital compass is the icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.

Definitely upgrading to 3.0 software when it comes out though. If nothing else, I could have really done with the 'Find My iPhone' (and, by extension, the bag it's in) feature a few weeks ago...

[drplokta]

Alas, it won't help most people, as you'll need a MobileMe subscription to use Find My iPhone.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Because my iphone is always on silent, Find My iPhone is almost a killer app to me; I may well get MobileMe *just for that*. Though I quite want to be able to do the photo subscriptions, especially now that my mum has an iMac.

[andrewducker]

Not entirely surprising that they don't want to doubly-subsidise their customers. It would seem like an odd business decision.

As someone said on /.
1) Have customer who love shinies.
2) Have 2 year contracts.
3) Produce shinies on a yearly basis.
4) Profit!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

It's actually abuse-of-monopoly-provider status. As I said above, I already *know* that 18 month contracts are a terrible idea for me and if I was buying in a real market then I would have chosen to buy on a 12 month contract last year. There's a good chance I'd have been able to get 12 months for the same £35, just with fewer minutes/texts too (I use only a tiny fraction of my allowance)

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. Locking a phone to a provider is ridiculous, it removes all competition.

[ckd]

Agreed. Hey, at least it looks like O2 will have MMS and such from day one unlike AT&T, which seems to have internalized the old AT&T's attitude: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."