A couple of weeks ago we brought you news and updates of the iPhone 4 price plans offered by T-Mobile and 3 Mobile, here in the UK. Now, though, there is a new player on the scene in the shape of O2, who have now announced their own plans for Apple’s brilliant, yet controversial, 4th generation iPhone smartphone.
The network is expecting customers to pay a full £495 up front for the cheaper, 16GB model of the iPhone 4, or alternatively opting to pay £595 for the more premium 32GB iPhone 4 offering. Now, to put that in to some sort of perspective, you can buy the device direct from Apple for only £4 more than that for either model, so hoping for any real subsidisation would ultimately be all but futile.
The pricing nightmare doesn’t end there either, with O2’s pair of price plans weighing in at £15 and £25 more expensive than Vodafone’s offerings, for example. However, for that you do get twice as much data allowance, 500mb. Plus, the added benefit of 1GB of BT Openzone WiFi usage to boot.
The other factor on O2’s side of the fence is the fact that they, along with Vodafone, are the only networks to sell the iPhone 4 directly on a PAYG basis. The others: Orange, Three and T-Mobile, vary in their stance on PAYG deals, with T-Mobile saying it is ‘coming soon’ and others offering micro-sim deals for current iPhone owners.
So, while they may be going in to direct competition with Vodafone on the PAYG front, they do hold an apparent advantage in that the iPhone 4, both 16GB and 32GB, is in stock on the O2 site, contrary to anything you will find on the Vodafone site, for now at least.
Source – Zath
