Articles tagged with: mobile tariffs

Daytime TV whore and self-proclaimed money-saving expert, Martin Lewis, has posted some curious iPhone tariff calculations on his own-brand website (go on then – it’s Money Saving Expert, and correct hyphenation be damned).

The breakdown pinpoints apparent savings to be made by exploiting O2’s willingness to allow subscribers to switch tariffs after 9 months.

So, taking the 8GB iPhone as an example, plump for the £45 tariff and then downgrade to the £35 plan halfway through the 18-month term, it’s possible to save £9 over the term. This is because the £35 tariff has a £99 upfront fee for the iPhone, where the £45 plan has none. Simple maths and £9 saved, thank you very much Money[-]Saving Expert. But Lewis overlooks a much simpler way to save rather more money when bagging an iPhone. You’ll find our real money-saving tip after the cut.

One week from today (11 July), the iPhone 3G will launch worldwide. In the UK the carrier will be O2, and it is offering a choice of tariffs – both monthly-subscription contracts and pay-as-you-go (PAYG). We know in fine detail the pricing of the various subscription plans and, thanks to an apparent cock-up last week by an O2 employee, we also have a good idea what the PAYG charges will be.

So why is O2 still being so coy about its PAYG plans? What is preventing the company from confirming (or indeed denying) the details of the leaked pricing structure? It’s not like such details pose a threat to national security, after all.

Well, because it’s a slow news day, we put in a call to O2 to see if it would finally admit that the pricing information was accurate. Its intriguing response is after the jump.

Just as we thought O2 had finally released its Pay & Go pricing for the iPhone 3G - it went and unreleased it. A page appeared on the O2 website appearing to give full details of the 8GB and 16GB pre-pay deals, but then mysteriously disappeared.

Thankfully it was up long enough for plenty of people to make note of the details. An 8GB model will cost slightly less than predicted at £299.99, while a 16GB version will be £60 more. Intriguingly there'll also be free Wi-Fi and 3G data thrown in for the first six months, reverting to £10 a month after that. Click through for the full text of the offer.

Half the point of owning an iPhone is the generous unlimited data package - a factor that's set to come into its own with the 3G version. But with it has come a warning, from the Times, about browsing the web while abroad.

TimesOnline points out that O2 will be charging nearly £3/MB for roaming within the EU and almost £6/MB for the rest of the world. In other words, a single minute of cat-falling-in-a-pond hilarity on YouTube could end up costing you up to £12 when you get back home.

Our advice: leave the phone set to the default "Data Roaming Off" setting when you venture abroad. The cat can wait.

Everyone knows that at £99, the iPhone 3G 8Gb is much cheaper to buy than the original model (which started at £269 and was then reduced to £169), but how much does each phone cost over the minimum 18-month contract with O2?

The good news is that not only is the iPhone 3G cheaper to make than the original model, but it’s cheaper to own, too. Based on the final £169 pricing (just before the iPhone was withdrawn from sale), the total cost of ownership for the original 8Gb iPhone over the full term of the cheapest 18-month contract was £799, assuming you stayed within the monthly call and SMS allowances. In contrast, the iPhone 3G 8Gb’s total cost on the cheapest O2 tariff is £639 – or £160 less.

While O2 is yet to reveal the cost of the iPhone 3G on its Pay & Go pre-pay plan, the first prices have been released for the cost of an unsubsidised handset in Europe. Vodafone Italy says it will be selling the iPhone 3G, without subsidy, for €499 for the 8GB model and €569 for the 16GB version. That converts to £395 and £450 respectively and could well be the rough price tag that O2 opts for.

Given that all UK iPhone purchases will now be tied to a contract, a pre-pay iPhone may be the only option for those looking to Jailbreak the handset and use it on another network - assuming a hack is developed soon, of course.

Anyone interested in the Pay & Go option can sign up on the O2 website to be sent details as soon as they're released.

[Engadget Mobile]

O2 has announced its tariffs for the new iPhone 3G. The 8Gb iPhone 3G will cost £99 on O2’s new £30 per month tariff; the 16Gb model will cost £159. Both models will be free on its highest £75 per month tariff.

Unfortunately, the free O2 upgrade offer for exisiting iPhone owners we initially reported turned out to be untrue. O2 is letting customers break their exisiting 18-month iPhone contract if they sign up to a new 18-month iPhone 3G contract, but that's all they get from the deal. More details after the cut.

If new research from GfK NOP is correct, then Santa is unlikely to be stuffing many iPhones into his sack this Christmas. The research shows that UK consumers perceive the iPhone as being too expensive to tempt a purchase. Five hundred people were polled, with 72% saying that they would not buy one, due to the price. Only 2% were even considering adding the iPhone to their Christmas list.

Richard Jameson of GfK NOP said: "Apple’s history proves that it has the magic touch when it comes to product development and marketing, however the iPhone has yet to capture the imagination of the UK public… our data shows that it is very much a considered purchase, with its high price turning many consumers off.”

[Gfk NOP]

€749 - that's the price of an unlocked iPhone, according one online handset retailer in France. Phone&Phone lists "Prices without subscription" for the 8Gb iPhone as "3x 252,€67, or €749 TTC (Includes €9 registration fee)".

That equates to around £523 at current exchange rates – rather more than a £269 iPhone locked to O2, but less than the £900 or so that the iPhone's 18 month contract will ultimately cost.