O2 Offered iPhone Contract in UK

davidmcg writes "There has been speculation on who will provide the service for iPhone in the UK. Now, the answer has been provided. It seems that O2 has been offered the contract to provide telephony services in the UK for the iPhone. It seems that the iPhone should be available in the UK in time for Christmas. O2 have refused to confirm or deny these reports, so is it yet another unconfirmed iPhone rumor or is it fact? We can only wait to find out."

3G for Europe?

[aluminumcube]

Just an uninformed theory, but I think Apple would need to go 3G with the iPhone if they want to really succeed in the Euro market. Most Americans have never had the exposure to get addicted to a fast net connection on a cell phone, so going with EDGE is grumble-worthy but not a deal breaker for the US mass market. Europeans, on the other hand, are 3G fanatics from what I understand.

Re:Lock-in

[MightyYar]

Anti-trust? From Apple? They might, if they are lucky, control 1% of the cell phone market!

Re:3G chips too power intensive

[iamdrscience]

Jobs said he's not going to do 3G until they can get 3G chips that use less power. Who wants to bet Apple is arranging to have exactly that available by the fall?

I'll take that bet. If chip companies could make lower power 3G chips, they would. It's not like Apple's the only company that wants 3G chips that consume less power, in fact, they're one of the smaller companies (in terms of the production volume of their phones) that wants chips like that.

3G chips need more power than EDGE chips, it's just a fact and although there may be advances so that they require less power than they do now, no amount of "arrangement" by Apple is going to speed that up.

Speculation vs Fact

[Durzel]

The Times Online [timesonline.co.uk] is reporting that O2 have already won the contract ("O2 has beaten its rivals to win the exclusive UK rights to offer Apple's iPhone"), BBC News is saying that it is "reported to have won the sought-after deal". So the BBC is speculating whereas The Times is claiming it to be fact. I don't know who to believe.

If you believe all the articles you read then apparently O2 have denying winning the contract [tech.co.uk], being quoted as saying "they're just stories without any truth to them". That sounds like a pretty negative statement for a company who is apprently just being hush-hush about being in such a privileged position.

O2 do not have very good 3G coverage in the UK, it seems almost a no-brainer that Vodafone would've won the contract since their infrastructure is superior. There's no EDGE in the UK, so the UK iPhone either has to be 3G, or work over GPRS... the latter doesn't bear thinking about (think Youtube vids downloaded at 3-4KBps).

The smart money is still on Vodafone to win the contract in my opinion, despite these reports, and the UK (maybe Euro) iPhone having 3G support.

Re:What about smaller countries

[BungaDunga]

-California is not a warzone.
-You _have_ a tap. Care to walk miles for water every day?
-Beijing "air pollution capital of the world" [guardian.co.uk]
-A valid point
-I heard a report on the BBC today talking about this informal study they're doing on quality of life in Baghdad. All three of the families they are tracking got about an hour a day of electricity this week, and constant electricity supply is in the dim future.

Re:3G for Europe?

[Sircus]

£8 a month (that's $240 for you Americans)

£8 is US$16.14 at current rates. Or $193.68/year.

Re:They dont want the market to change

[fdobbie]

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Phones are historically heavily subsidized in the UK, with a contract (and handset) churn rate of 12 months. The MNOs have been pushing hard to kick that out to 18 months, but it's nowhere near the state of affairs in the US where 24 months is standard.

Oh no, not O2!!!

[DrogMan]

I'm with O2, fortunately out of my mandatory lock-in period. I'm not interested in an iPhone, but as soon as I can get my grubby paws on a Nokia E90, I'm jumping ship - probably to T-Mobile. Why? O2's GPRS data charges are extortionate.

You get 100KB for free a month. Last month I had to use my phone for data and I managed to suck down 14441KB. They charged me £27.97 for the privilege. That sucks. ~30 quid for 15MB. I pay less than that for my broadband connection a month and that's capped at 40GB a month.

Mobile data in the UK is rubbish.

/DM

Re:3G for Europe?

[arivanov]

Wrong product actually. You should navigate their website before talking rubbish. Look for the 3G broadband modem or the datacard.

Vodafone currently has the most sensible dedicated data plans at:

- 90 quid for unlimited + up to 250MB EU roaming (look at the T-Mob roaming tariff and you will choke on your breakfast).
- under 50 for unlimited UK use + 8 pounds per up to 50MB day EU roaming in countries with Voda franchises
- 29 for 250MB UK use + 8 pounds per up to 50MB day EU roaming (countries with franchises).

Unfortunately, their sales and customer service staff are a bunch of cretinous moronoids which do not even know that the tariffs exist. I have a couple of mail threads in my mailbox about them and they make a reading close to the classic "Dear Cretins" letter to NTL.

Voda unfortunately has a host of known Data problems as well. It has no EDGE for purely political reasons. Some wanker in their management said once upon a time that Edge is useless and they would not dilute the value of their 3G license by buying into a competitive technology so they now tow the party line regardless of the fact that their Edgeless GPRS network is totally out of capacity. The CretinBerry has eaten it all. The packet loss on GPRS on voda on a morning UK east coast mainline commuter train is currently 95%+ downlink. So if the iPhone in Europe is not a 3G device, the choice of O2 is obvious. It has considerably more GPRS capacity to go around and it has Edge in all places where it matters.

So nothing new here. If the iPhone is a 2G device the choice is correct, though fairly shortsighted. The device will be useless where it most matters - on roaming. For that Apple should have chosen Voda. Europe is not US. Here everyone who has the money to buy an iPhone goes on at least 4 holidays abroad per year if not more and expects the gadget to work there as well. Without a 700£ data bill.