Filed under: iPhone
O2 iPhone paygo plans coming Sept. 16
In June, O2 kind of announced that there would be a pay-as-you-go plan for the iPhone, and now they've finally set September 16 as its launch.
UK customers can buy an 8GB iPhone for £350, and a 16GB handset for £400. Both plans come with free web browsing for the first year. (After the first year, it's £10 per month for unlimited data.) Pricey. Less pricey than, say, Greece, but still pretty steep.
Tariffs will be based on the "Favourite Place" scheme. A £10 – £14 top-up gets you 500 minutes to any UK landline, £15 – £29 gets you 1000 minutes, and £30 or more gets you unlimited minutes. Texts are 10p each.
Taking your iPhone abroad could get spendy, though: downloading 1MB of data in any EU country will cost three quid -- six outside Europe -- though this is no different than other O2 plans.
O2 also said they will give customers 10 percent of the value of their top-ups over the last 18 months as call time worth up to £200.
[Via iPhonesTalk and Total Telecom.]
Thanks Ash and William for the heads-up!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
SwirlyBoy said 4:11PM on 9-01-2008
What's the chance of them giving us some discount or deal with the o2 simplicity plan..
£400 seems a reasonable price for 16GB! Might have to see instore if I can use my o2 simplicity plan and get the WiFi access.
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Ethan said 4:21PM on 9-01-2008
Actually I think that seems surprisingly alright.
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Neil said 4:37PM on 9-01-2008
In the interests of completeness TUAW should note that the £3/MB roaming rate is identical to how much those on contract iPhones pay.
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Robert Palmer said 4:39PM on 9-01-2008
Thanks, Neil, I've updated the story with that tidbit.
Matt Bernstein said 4:39PM on 9-01-2008
Why bother when you can get a 2G for £200 or less and put a £20/month Sim-Only Simplicity contract on it. £150 and a more pricey monthly turn-out is too much. However, will you be able to use a sim-only pay-monthly tariff with it? We will see.
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Tony said 7:36PM on 9-01-2008
OK Let's cost that out.
2G phone £200
£20 Simplicity Tariff £240
Unlimited Web+Wifi £120
Total £560
3G phone £399
Plus £14/month calls before you pay more than the 2G.
Fine if you're into that kind of thing.. but having a new 3G phone rather than a second hand 2G off ebay definately looks like a good dea.
MattFM said 4:42PM on 9-01-2008
An 18 month contract at £30pm was out of the question for me so I've been eagerly awaiting the PAG announcement. Having seen it, I know have to come to terms with the fact I'll probably never become an iPhone owner so long as they're tied to networks. Ridiculously overpriced! O2 are obviously trying to steer people towards the contracts. Apple should take some of the blame for giving O2 the UK monopoly. Shame on both companies.
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Itchster said 5:03PM on 9-01-2008
Also it looks like you can use any o2 pay as you go tarriff its just the one stated is the default one. For instance instead of 500 min you could get 300 texts instead. or Unlimited texts to other 02 mobiles
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Seb said 5:09PM on 9-01-2008
Once TomTom comes out for the iPhones built in GPS, you got a deal.
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Brian said 5:21PM on 9-01-2008
The most important question is "is it unlocked..." or how much/easy will it be to unlock ?
As there is no contract then in theory you should be able to use it on other networks.
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Kelmon said 5:40AM on 9-02-2008
Yup, that's the important question for me. I'm living in Belgium at present and an unlocked 16GB iPhone 3G will cost me EUR 615. Since I go back to the UK quite often, and the 16GB Pay-As-You-Go version will cost about EUR 500 at the current exchange rate, an unlocked O2 iPhone would be very attractive to me. I definitely want an O2 Pay-As-You-Go SIM for my trips back to the UK but need to be able to put in a Proximus one for when I'm back "home" in Belgium.
Hopefully this question will be answered in a few weeks time, or even sooner. I don't expect I'll be that lucky but you can only hope...
Micah said 5:40PM on 9-01-2008
Hmm, 500 minutes for ~$20 US on AT&T. I pay something like $40 for 450 minutes a month, plus $30+ for unlimited data. Seems to me that if you don't use your phone feature much and don't send a ton of text messages, this is a better deal that what I have to sign a 2-year contract to get in the US.
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Mike Krus said 6:07PM on 9-01-2008
over 18 months, it looks like PAYG is £60 cheaper than the cheapest contract.
So if you don't call/text much and use mostly data, sounds like a good deal.
Would need to be easily unlockable though
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Tony said 7:31PM on 9-01-2008
Not sure how you worked that out. Cheapest contract is £30 for 18 months.
£199+£30*18 = £739
You don't pay for the first years unlimited data so Payg costs
£399 + £10*6 = £459
That's £280 cheaper over 18 months. It remains cheaper until you make more than £15/mo in calls on PayG... which lots of people don't.
William Hook said 7:33PM on 9-01-2008
According to the iPhone dev team, the 3G iPhone should be unlockable but they've not done it yet, and there is always the possibility that they can't.
As for myself, I'm considering selling my iPhone 2G and getting the 3G one, but I might hold off for a few months...
And, offtopic, yay, I got mentioned in the article. :D
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Rubbinz said 9:14PM on 9-01-2008
Pricey? Not really when compared to other no-contract smartphones.
Given O2's set date for no-contract iPhone 3G, I suspect that AT&T will announce their $599 for an 8GB iPhone 3G that they listed fairly soon.
If Apple can finally get these firmware bugs worked out as promised for this month, I might get one since I'm one of those that like to fully own my devices and don't do contracts for phone service. The 1st Gen iPhone is still fetching a nice premium on eBay, I could sell it in pristine condition and un-locked for around $350, which would make the contract free 3G only $250 with AT&T.
Maybe it was a good idea for Apple, AT&T and O2 to hold off on selling these for a later date so the supply could catch up with initial demand. Right now most people can just walk into an Apple or AT&T store and get one without waiting in a line.
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idwa said 2:11AM on 9-02-2008
I won't be upgrading until they up the camera spec. I got an unlocked from the states back in september - cost me 200 quid and then got a simplicity for 15 a month with a 7.50 web bolt on. I've only gone over that when I went to South Africa and used data. So in total my phone has cost me close to 470.
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mex said 5:58AM on 9-02-2008
By the way... 400£ are 494€ in Italy it cost 569!
The point is if it's operator free or not... I'm italian but I leave in Ireland... so just a weekend to London for my girlfriend... and a nice present to myself :)
TUAW... no any news about the operator lock???
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Samuel said 9:43PM on 9-12-2008
That's fine, the whitee iPhone costs £200 now and thats double in this case, but free for everything else .. I dont want to make calls but I want a GPS chip and a Camera, at £10/month thereafter, its much cheaper!!
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