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

[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."