Filed under: iPhone
Germans to get iPhone 3G for ?1
T-Mobile has released the iPhone 3G rate plans (link auf Deutsch) for Germany and it looks like our lucky friends in Deutschland are getting a major subsidy. The 8Gb iPhone will be available for as little as €1 with monthly plan of €69 while the 16Gb iPhone will be €19.95 with a monthly plan of €89. All of these plans include 3G data and access to T-Mobile's wifi HotSpot network and require a 24-month contract. Unfortunately, things are not so rosy for existing iPhone customers. According to the German iPhone Blog, existing customers will be on the hook for €10 per month remaining in their original contracts (or about €180 for the earliest adopters) before being eligible to sign up for the new 24 month plan. So it's good news for new iPhone customers, but existing 2G customers are in for a blow to the Geldbeutel if they want to upgrade.
Thanks, Carlos and Thorsten!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nay said 4:30PM on 6-16-2008
aka 138 dollars a month for a phone plan for the 16gb version
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Nay said 4:32PM on 6-16-2008
Then again the cost of living over there is different than in the US
ard buijsen said 4:40PM on 6-16-2008
As in more expensive, you mean?
David said 5:57PM on 6-16-2008
Why does everyone insist on converting the Euro to the US Dollar to see if they are getting a good deal? If you're going to do that, then also change your paycheck from Euro to Dollar to see how much more you get paid.
What if in the future, the US Dollar makes a big comeback and is worth more than the Euro. Will you then welcome Apple raising your prices so you're paying the same amount? It works both ways.
daniel said 6:09AM on 6-17-2008
Yeh the same with the UK, a free iphone here will be £45 a month, thats $90 a month to you guys but that's totally out of proportion. for example
minium wage UK £5.52 - US 5.85
price of an average CD UK £10.99 - US £9.99
I can't be bothered to find other examples, but it's the same in europe as well
morgan chiu said 4:41PM on 6-16-2008
Would I be able to bring a Deutsch iPhone back to the States and activate it?
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bunringspear said 2:28AM on 6-17-2008
In-Store activation only. There is still a BIG market for US iPhones in Germany.
Leon said 4:43PM on 6-16-2008
the plans in germany suck. with the least expensive you only get 500mb/month. the other plans will be throtthled down to to 60kb/s after you've generated 300mb, 1gig or 5gig of traffic.
the german plans are the most expensive in europe. so in total your iphone 2.0 will cost you from 890 eur (1400 usd) to 2160 eur (1950 usd).
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Leon said 4:46PM on 6-16-2008
oops, 2160 eur is 3340 usd. :)
Carlo Zottmann said 1:57AM on 6-17-2008
Leon, the throttling isn't "60 kb/s", it's 64 kbit/s (download) and 16 kbit/s (upload), which translates to 8 kByte/s.
Can't wait to access Google Maps with that speed!
German T-Mobile customers are getting the shaft again. No surprise there.
Pete said 4:43PM on 6-16-2008
It's amazing that we still put up with so much from the cell phone companies. I thought Apple would be the one to come in and change things, but the strangle hold is too strong even for Apple.
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richard said 4:45PM on 6-16-2008
yes, the cost of living is different, but even €69 (about 107 US dollars) per month is utterly crazy.
"iPhone 3G for €1" my ass, so to speak.
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Paolo said 4:58PM on 6-16-2008
69€/month means 1656€/2 years - that is the oveall TOC for the duration of the contract - this is 56€ more that the 1600€ needed with the cheapest plan when the iPhone first came out last year - and this, not considering all the limitations of the plan and the high phone rates as mentioned in the other comments.
(more details of the older offer here: http://tisvernicio.vox.com/library/post/nooo---i-am-not-getting-it.html)
Moreover, for some odd reason, the iPhone will be, supposedly, available in Italy, e.g., from 2 operators (Telecom Italia and Vodafone), while in Germany we are stuck with T-Mobile only.
And.... I am going to pass on this one as well - I have better things to do with my money... And the point is that people buy the iPhone with these terrible plans!!!
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Paolo said 5:15PM on 6-16-2008
PS: Vodafone Italia has published a first page outlining the cost of the phone in case of pre-paid - 8GB version for 499€ and the 16GB version for 569€. And that is REALLY expesive compared also to all the other offers out there from Nokia & etc. So much for the "more affordable" statement.
http://iphone.vodafone.it/?tk=9616%2Cc&ty_key=iphone.vodafone.it
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Peter said 5:41PM on 6-16-2008
as leon said, the german t-mobile plans suck.
in case there are plans form vodafone or other carriers which are much cheaper. even vodafone is providing the better and faster 3g-network...
so i will go for holiday to italy in july, pay off 569€ (which would be the same prize with a 10 months t-mobile-plan instead off 24 months) for the plan-free iphone and use my existing vodafone-plan on it...
thanks t-mobile...
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jimboblives said 6:36PM on 6-16-2008
Well, the german plans are indeed far from ideal. Still I think they are not as bad as a lot of people think they are. First of all, the most expensive plan with the 1 Euro iPhone has 1000 minutes for voice calls and hundreds of SMS included (here in germany flat rates are available, but are still not as common as they might be elsewhere). Plus you get free voice calls on weekends. This might still be expensive, but I think the 2000-something Euros are not entirely correct.
I ordered the cheapest plan: 500MB data (no throttling), 50 minutes voice calls included, free on weekends, 29 Euro/month, 169 Euro for the iPhone. No flatrate for the T-online wireless hotspots, but I have that already anyway. I'm pretty sure 500MB is more than enough for me. And probably for many others.
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Cardinal Mendoza said 2:21AM on 6-17-2008
To my mind, the cheapest plan is simply ridiculous.
You get 500 MB / Month - but only within the first three month of the contract. Afterwards, you only get 100 MB / Month. Usage of the T-Mobile Hotspots is not included as well in this package.
But it gets even worse: the cheapest contract (29 EUR / Month) forbids the usage of both VoIP and Instant Messaging (!!) - so no ICQ, AIM, whatever on your iPhone I guess ...
To top things off, all iPhone plans in Germany feature an extremely high price for normal telephone calls - even by German standards. Once you have used up all free minutes included, every additional minute will be charged with 29 Eurocent which is currently something like 44 US-Cent (however, a flatrate for calls made within the T-Mobile-Network or from T-Mobile to fixed network is included for weekends).
There will be enough people who need to have the newest iPhone for their ego or who simply don't care how costly the German plans are -- but I doubt that Apple will reach the mass market in Germany as long as they stick to T-Mobile as their exclusive partner.
I really like the Apple devices but given the T-Mobile plans, I'll wait for the Google-Android-based phones to come.
Cardinal Mendoza said 2:22AM on 6-17-2008
Correction:
I'm sorry - the 500 MB / Month is indeed granted for the full 24 month contract length as long as you order within the first three months.
Afterwars, it will be only 100 MB / Month.
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Alexander said 2:34AM on 6-17-2008
Hi all,
I am not sure wether the pricing is completely out of range compared to other markets or not. For me, as a travelling consultant, the L (69€) or even XL (89€) options could be interesting, but I need to get more info about plans for international roaming on those contracts.
My current German provider E-Plus would offer real flat for 3G data (25€) + Voice (20€ incl. 60 minutes to other providers or 60€ full flat for all networks).
So I am really interested if the phone would work on the frequencies used by the other providers.
Apples specs say: UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
While the T-Mo in network Germany uses:
1.900,1 - 1.905,1 Downlink Group 3G
1.905,1 - 1.910,1 Downlink MobilCom
1.910,1 - 1.915,1 Downlink T-Mobile
1.915,1 - 1.920,1 Downlink Vodafone D2
1.920,3 - 1.930,2 Uplink Vodafone D2
1.930,3 - 1.940,2 Uplink Group 3G
1.940,3 - 1.950,2 Uplink e-plus
1.950,0 - 1.959,9 Uplink MobilCom
1.959,9 - 1.969,8 Uplink O2
1.969,8 - 1.979,7 Uplink T-Mobile
1.980,0 - 2.010,0 Satelliten Uplink noch in Planung
2.019,7 - 2.024,7 Downlink e-plus
2.110,3 - 2.120,2 Downlink Vodafone D2
2.120,2 - 2.130,1 Downlink Group 3G
2.130,1 - 2.140,0 Downlink e-plus
2.140,0 - 2.149,9 Downlink MobilCom
2.149,9 - 2.159,8 Downlink O2
2.159,8 - 2.169,7 Downlink T-Mobile
So, are the specs describing a corridor of frequencies or will T-Mobile switch the whole structure of freqs in order to serve the 3g iPhone in Germany ? (I highly doubt that).
Now, back to the topic - what is missing in the post, is a clear statement in the FAQ of T-Mobile on activation:
"How does the iPhone get activated? Via iTunes" ... see here http://www.t-mobile.de/iphone/faq.jsp.
So however it works to get them without a contract, but we will not see queues in shops to get them activated - at least in Germany.
Cheers
A.
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Chris said 2:56AM on 6-17-2008
T-Mobile didn't announce the final upgrade offer yet, they said this will be announced before july 1st. But even if you pay 180 euros it's not so bad. I.e. if you want a new HTC from O2 during before the end of you're contract this will set you back more than triple the price, in germany it's not usual that you get more than one phone while your contract lasts.
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