Disqus
What with all the hype and general excitement around the iPhone 3GS, I thought I’d take a look behind the iPhone tariff pricings, comparing a similar monthly spend across O2′s three kinds of tariff (note – I compared these tariffs online, this does not represent what you may find in shops):
- Standard Pay Monthly
- Simplicity (SIM-only) Rolling Monthly
- iPhone 3G(S)
I decided I would pick on £30/month (£29.38 to be exact) as the figure to assess across the board (since each tariff option has a £30 option), and see what that bought me:
Standard Pay Monthly
- 18-month tariff
- 400 minutes
- 1000 texts (online only)
- unlimited o2 to o2 calls
- Nokia 5800 Tube (free)
Simplicity
- Rolling monthly contract
- 1200 minutes
- 2400 texts (online only)
- unlimited o2 to o2 calls (default bolt-on)
- 18-month tariff
- 75 minutes
- 125 texts
- unlimited UK data (GPRS/3G) and WiFi access (via The Cloud)
I think those are the salient points, and it’s interesting to see how things stack up, isn’t it? I should be fair and say that if you were to go to the next tariff up with the iPhone, then you get 600 minutes and 500 texts per month – but the aim here was to compare what you get for your £29.38/month….
So what do we think?
You can find the tariff prices on the O2 site for Pay Monthly here, for Simplicity here, and for iPhone 3GS here.
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
