Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

2-year contract is the norm in other countries too?

coolwater

coolwater

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 8, 2009
722
1
At least iPhone is concerned, a 2-year contract is the norm in every country in order to get that subsidized low price?

I know Japan's iPhone carrier is giving out iPhone for free, but I don't know anything about their contract period or monthly plan.

Is 2-year contract and $199/$299 pretty much same worldwide?
 
In the UK the phone costs more (about $300 for the 16gb), but the contract is only 18 months. It's also considerably cheaper (about $50 a month for 600 mins, 500 texts and unlimited data). They also offer a 24 month contract in which the phone costs around $150, for the same above minutes and texts.
 
In the Netherlands the iPhone contract is 2 years, they market it as 24 months. It's relatively cheap also. All plans are unlimited data, 150 minutes and texts is 30 Euros (about USD$42). 300 minutes and 300 texts is about USD$63. And 500 minutes and texts is about USD$91. So, I think it's cheaper than in the U.S. How many minutes do you get here?

Oh and the service provider is T-Mobile.

Oh and if you buy the cheaper i-150 plan you pay a little bit. All of the higher plans the iPhone is free no matter which model you get (8GB, 16GB, etc.)
 
SteveMobs said:
In the Netherlands the iPhone contract is 2 years, they market it as 24 months. It's relatively cheap also. All plans are unlimited data, 150 minutes and texts is 30 Euros (about USD$42). 300 minutes and 300 texts is about USD$63. And 500 minutes and texts is about USD$91. So, I think it's cheaper than in the U.S. How many minutes do you get here?

Oh and the service provider is T-Mobile.

Oh and if you buy the cheaper i-150 plan you pay a little bit. All of the higher plans the iPhone is free no matter which model you get (8GB, 16GB, etc.)
Click to expand...

In US,

$40 - 450 min
$60 - 900 min
$80 - 1350 min
$100 - unlimited

$5 - 200 text
$15 - 1500 text
$20 - unlimited text

and there is a $30/mo data plan fee that is mandatory
 
coolwater said:
In US,

$40 - 450 min
$60 - 900 min
$80 - 1350 min
$100 - unlimited

$5 - 200 text
$15 - 1500 text
$20 - unlimited text

and there is a $30/mo data plan fee that is mandatory
Click to expand...

So it's more expensive in the U.S. for a user such as myself who would use the phone mostly for it's data. Interesting.
 
They're sneaking it up all the time. Orange are asking 36 months for one of theirs!

They're pushing it too far though and making people realise how much better a deal ( and more freedom ) they can get on PaYG or a cheap no-ties monthly SIM, optionally handing the financing of the phone - which is essentially what a contract does at a high APR but with some free service thrown in - to a much better value lender over a better period.

Even 18 months is too long to be tied to the same phone, at the speed they're evolving.
 
LondonDude89 said:
O2 are trying to phase out the 18 month contracts on the iPhone by the look of it.
they are even bringing out a lot more 24 month deals on normal phones now too
Click to expand...

I think all the UK networks are trying to push 24 month contracts to become the norm. They managed it with 18 month contracts, 12 month ones used to be the norm then gradually 18 months took over. Now hardly any contracts are 12 months especially if you want a decent phone. Looks like the same thing is starting to happen now with 24 month contracts.
 
In Italy with Vodafone you can have it starting from 69 euros and pay a monthly fee of 150 euros and go up to a price of 269 euros for a monthly fee of 50 euros. Bundles are tight it is not that conenient and you have to subscribe for a minimum of 24 months. Tim gives you a slightly better option,always if you sign for at least two years,with starting prices rispectively of 199 for the 8 giga version and 269 for the 16 giga;you get one giga of data per month and not much else. Contracts are less covenient then having the iPhone itself on a pre-paid basis and then get all data and/or messages offers which are valid for all customers. Anyway this will soon change with the new 3g S.
 
Pffff .... man, I wish 2 years was the norm.

3 years in Canada, without any sort of 'deeper' discount on the phone or services. In fact, if anything, we pay more here. :rolleyes:
 
Wirelessly posted (iPod touch 32GB: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

As other people have said, more and more carriers are trying to push 24 month contracts. When I got my original iPhone it was the first tiime I'd had a contract of more than 12 months (and I've had a cell phone since 1989) and now it's almost impossible to get a 12 month contract from anyone.
 
Phil A. said:
When I got my original iPhone it was the first tiime I'd had a contract of more than 12 months (and I've had a cell phone since 1989) and now it's almost impossible to get a 12 month contract from anyone.
Click to expand...

oldcellphones3_18_06_08.jpg
?
 
In Denmark the contract is only 6 months (due to government legislation this is the maximum allowed when purchasing a new phone). You can get the 8 Gb for around $220 and the 16 GB for $290. The contract will cost you around $110-120 per month the first 6 months and afterwards the same contract will be $75 or you can choose a cheaper contract. You will get free calls to other subscribers to the carrier, free calls to home phones, 300 minutes to other carriers, unlimited SMS and MMS, and 10 GB of data.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back