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Advice for UK T-Mobile User

Kardashian

Kardashian

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Sep 4, 2005
2,083
2
Britain.
Hey Guys.

Im currently in an *amazing* contract with T-Mobile.

Customer service is amazing, and the tariff is one of the best I've come across. For £30 per month, they give me £180 of allowance to use to any network, any time, for calls, texts and multimedia messages.

I would begrudge changing to another network at this point, and if I did, I would only consider O2 as I *hate* Vodafone, Three and Orange with a passion.

Wanting the iPhone badly, I was either going to move to an O2 contract, with it being no more than £35 per month, and budgeting £300 for the handset. I was also willing to pay T-Mobile 8 months contract fee of £30 per month (£240), to get out of my contract early.

Now O2 have released the JesusPhone that is the iPhone, and the tarriffs are, in my opinion, useless. The UK (from what I have heard), is more up to speed on mobile phones - and more often that not, we have a much more competitive market.

What O2 are offering for £35, even £45 a month is a total joke. I will not be purchasing an iPhone for data - I have my MacBook and broadband for that. I want calls and messages - so what I would get for £35 a month would be a complete rip off.

Unlike in the US, there is no way for us to purchase a Pay as You Go version of the iPhone. When purchasing an iPhone in the US, you can provide a social security number made up of all 0's which will allow the customer to purchase an iPhone on pay as you go (where they cannot run up a monthly bill).

I would have happily purchased it on pay as you go - but it doesn't look like we'll have that option, since taking out a contract phone here is different than the US (We go through a credit check, but we don't have SS numbers etc)


So I am now faced with a dilemma. I am determined to get an iPhone, somehow.

Would you advise:

1. I purchase an unlocked US iPhone off eBay NOW, for no more than £400, and hope Apple don't force me to re-lock it with a firmware update in the future?
2. Wait until the UK version of the iPhone is released in November, and purchase one of those on eBay? Again, hoping they don't re-lock them, and if they do, someone finds a workaround.. quick
3. Wait and see if O2 release a Pay as you Go iPhone (Like AT&T offer by entering the 'fake' all-0's Social Security number), and use it as an O2 Pay as You Go phone?

Comment below, please.

Thanks again everyone and sorry for a long post. :)
 
JDT said:
Hey Guys.

Im currently in an *amazing* contract with T-Mobile.

Customer service is amazing, and the tariff is one of the best I've come across. For £30 per month, they give me £180 of allowance to use to any network, any time, for calls, texts and multimedia messages.

I would begrudge changing to another network at this point, and if I did, I would only consider O2 as I *hate* Vodafone, Three and Orange with a passion.

Wanting the iPhone badly, I was either going to move to an O2 contract, with it being no more than £35 per month, and budgeting £300 for the handset. I was also willing to pay T-Mobile 8 months contract fee of £30 per month (£240), to get out of my contract early.

Now O2 have released the JesusPhone that is the iPhone, and the tarriffs are, in my opinion, useless. The UK (from what I have heard), is more up to speed on mobile phones - and more often that not, we have a much more competitive market.

What O2 are offering for £35, even £45 a month is a total joke. I will not be purchasing an iPhone for data - I have my MacBook and broadband for that. I want calls and messages - so what I would get for £35 a month would be a complete rip off.

Unlike in the US, there is no way for us to purchase a Pay as You Go version of the iPhone. When purchasing an iPhone in the US, you can provide a social security number made up of all 0's which will allow the customer to purchase an iPhone on pay as you go (where they cannot run up a monthly bill).

I would have happily purchased it on pay as you go - but it doesn't look like we'll have that option, since taking out a contract phone here is different than the US (We go through a credit check, but we don't have SS numbers etc)


So I am now faced with a dilemma. I am determined to get an iPhone, somehow.

Would you advise:

1. I purchase an unlocked US iPhone off eBay NOW, for no more than £400, and hope Apple don't force me to re-lock it with a firmware update in the future?
2. Wait until the UK version of the iPhone is released in November, and purchase one of those on eBay? Again, hoping they don't re-lock them, and if they do, someone finds a workaround.. quick
3. Wait and see if O2 release a Pay as you Go iPhone (Like AT&T offer by entering the 'fake' all-0's Social Security number), and use it as an O2 Pay as You Go phone?

Comment below, please.

Thanks again everyone and sorry for a long post. :)
Click to expand...


I would say, u do option #1 .... buy an iPhone off Ebay ... and unlock it, don't do any updates on it before u find out if that will brick your phone or not and if the update is ok, then your good to go.
Also 400.00 GBP = 798.322 USD ... you can for sure get an iPhone for that money .... hell i sell u one over paypal for 600USD if ur willing to spend that money (+shipping)
 
Croatian said:
I would say, u do option #1 .... buy an iPhone off Ebay ... and unlock it, don't do any updates on it before u find out if that will brick your phone or not and if the update is ok, then your good to go.
Also 400.00 GBP = 798.322 USD ... you can for sure get an iPhone for that money .... hell i sell u one over paypal for 600USD if ur willing to spend that money (+shipping)
Click to expand...

In that case, I think I'll take the leap and buy a US iPhone, and use it on T-Mobile.

Your not forced to install updates on any of the external Apple hardware, are you?

It won't suddently cease to sync or work should I not install any updates? :confused:
 
Same Boat....

I'm also on a really good T-Mobile contract, in fact I also get friends and family discount so I want to leave even less... Now that the iPhone has been announced in the UK I am also going to get the US Version and pay to have it unlocked... there are some solid unlock programs about now and to be honest I dont think Apple will spend too much time seeking to re-lock the phone as they have bigger fish to fry and the VAST majority of customers do things the right way as they are people who don't know any better and think the AT&T or O2 way of registering is the only way and that unlocking the phone is too time consuming or dangerous!

However I am annoyed by the fact that I can't use my visual voicemail as I like that feature and the loss of it is actually making me think of paying the O2 rip off prices.

I got to thinking tho... if T-Mobile in Germany get the contract surely they will enable visual voicemail on their servers?? What does everyone think??

Also if the phone does get locked with an update do you think it'll be possible to re-register it with O2..you know "if you can't beat em join em" lol

Let me know what you think guys... as advice though, I'm getting a US one and unlocking it, which costs £39.99 :)
 
npdale said:
I'm also on a really good T-Mobile contract, in fact I also get friends and family discount so I want to leave even less... Now that the iPhone has been announced in the UK I am also going to get the US Version and pay to have it unlocked... there are some solid unlock programs about now and to be honest I dont think Apple will spend too much time seeking to re-lock the phone as they have bigger fish to fry and the VAST majority of customers do things the right way as they are people who don't know any better and think the AT&T or O2 way of registering is the only way and that unlocking the phone is too time consuming or dangerous!

However I am annoyed by the fact that I can't use my visual voicemail as I like that feature and the loss of it is actually making me think of paying the O2 rip off prices.

I got to thinking tho... if T-Mobile in Germany get the contract surely they will enable visual voicemail on their servers?? What does everyone think??

Also if the phone does get locked with an update do you think it'll be possible to re-register it with O2..you know "if you can't beat em join em" lol

Let me know what you think guys... as advice though, I'm getting a US one and unlocking it, which costs £39.99 :)
Click to expand...
Where are you buying your iPhone from? Unlocking it is free, there are 3 apps that do it, I think, one which you install on the iPhone and is self executable.
 
Croatian said:
I would say, u do option #1 .... buy an iPhone off Ebay
Click to expand...

Try to get someone you know to buy it for you from Apple. If anything goes wrong it is much easier to service if it was bought from Apple, and in some cases Apple will cover accidental damage if it's bought from them. I did this for a friend with an iPod back in the day, and sure enough they had a headphone jack problem that Apple fixed for free because I sent it to them from the US, instead of overseas.

Just a thought.... but you should know someone in the US with a credit card.
 
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