O2 Ireland defends high iPhone costs

I live in Ireland and have been waiting over a year now for the iPhone to get here (remember it was announced at Macworld in Jan/Feb'07). I really want the iphone but am sickened by O2 Irelands greedy price plan. I have formally complained to them and have not even received a reply. The O2 price comparisons between Ireland and the UK are well documented by now. However, O2's lame excuse that they are competive with prices across Europe doesn't wash with me. I just spent the weekend in London and was able to use up my free minutes over their as I would have there. This was great but it also showed me that O2 can compare like with like when it suits them. Shame on O2. Shame on them.

Telecom in Ireland is expensive. period.

Some of it is due to taxes....most is due to a lack of competition. I wish Ryanair decided to enter the telecom market in europe!!

Mobile voice plans in Ireland are outrageous and this is just another example of the egregious rates which Irish mobile operators charge (and get away with).

The total cost of ownership for an 02 iphone (initial purchase plus annual plan cost) should be compared to a comparable AT&T purchase and annual plan cost. You will be shocked as to the difference.

Rates in Ireland are almost a barrier to adoption for mobile data devices.

Apple has been awfully quiet about the European launch. No hard figures, a lot of smoke and mirrors. It's safe to say the iPhone is failing over here. One (1) friend has an iPhone, that he parallel-imported from the US and consquently jailbroke.

Going the legit route in Europe is only for rich nutters, of which there luckily aren't that many, it seems.

As that is almost the same prices as the iPod Touch 16-32GB I cant wait to see what the iPhone will cost once it gets to Norway.

These prices are almost identical to the price of the iPhone in the rest of Europe. In Germany, the cheapest plan is 5eu higher than in Ireland. Where's the story?

I'm so sick of the iPhone. I'm waiting till I go to the US. It's so stupid to buy it anywhere else.

I wouldn't be too surprised if O2 somehow managed to get more iPhones subscribed than they sell. Two things Irish people love to do are complain and get one over on "the system" (disclaimer: I'm an Irish ex-pat). I wouldn't be surprised if a family member asked me to bring one over for them on my next trip, especially if O2 somehow pull visual voicemail out of a magic hat some time in the future.

The Irish prices are ridiculous when compared to the UK ones. O2 in ireland is pretty well the same company as O2 in the UK.

I think the 1Gb cap came from O2's discovery of just how much people like to surf the net on these things in the UK.

It makes much more sense if you're at all technically competent and you have friends there to ship from the US and jailbreak it.

But there's plenty of people here who'll sign up in a heartbeat when it launches. Ireland has changed a lot, there's a lot of wealthy consumers here who'll be keen to own one and the price is neither here nor there. And they have no idea what a data cap is.

The O2 spokesperson's comments are pretty shameful really. But I doubt if shame enters the equation within that company....

did no one in O2 ireland see how much UK launch flopped? Does no one there know of people buying stuff online? Exactly how many people living in the basement that need an iphone does ireland have according to O2?

Hmmm...we're still waiting in Australia and I bet the price here will be even higher. I'm predicting USD800 for the phone and a monthly tariff of USD100 with no sensible data. If O2 got away without visual voicemail, so will an Australian carrier.

My advice - find a friend who is jetting over to the US and get one there. Jailbreaking/unlocking is cheap as chips now and if you're not getting the big features on the official network, why bother getting an official phone? Apple clearly doesn't mind that much, so send your bucks to Apple and not O2.