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rob@robburns.co

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2007
162
0
The model that Apple & AT&T seem to be operating under is in complete opposition with Verizon's operating model. They provide Ring Tones, music & photos to sell more types of services not to help an outside company or partner like Apple or to help supply their customers with low cost user run services. I'm speaking this as a Verizon customer that is happy with my cell phone service, but do not use any of the other Verizon pay extra for services. Around here they have about the best cell connection service. That's what I bought my Verizon cell phone plan for. Not for the unsupported items & features of my cell phone.

I would imagine the most difficult obstacle stopping Verizon from making a deal with Apple was their business model of crippling hardware and trying to sell customers all sorts of useless media they don't really want while keeping from the services they doo want. That doesn't jibe with iPhone.

I don't believe that Verizon would have goten along with the always obtrusive Apple. AT&T, not being the top cell phone company, had less to lose & more to gain. I would have liked to have seen either Verizon or Sprint to have been the iPhone partner. But they are both doing too well on their own to change their business model to that which Apple appears to require. Part of the requiring has to do with the many features of the iPhone.

There are so many things wrong with this statement.

First, from: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2007-05-21-at&t-iphone_N.htm

USA Today said:
AT&T currently claims about 62.2 million customers. Verizon and Sprint have 60.7 million and 53.6 million, respectively.

So AT&T is not a small-time provider. I think going back in history there are times when Verizon was on top and times when Cingular was on top. If reports are correct and Verizon has a better network than AT&T, then they may be spending more on the network than AT&T and they therefore need the customers more than AT&T. Second, the only feature AT&T likely had to change was to add server side-support for visual voicemail. This is a minor upgrade to a provider with 60 million subscribers. The other issue was perhaps Apple pushing for an acceleration of upgrades to AT&T's Edge network. If Verison's network is as great as many claim, Verizon wouldn't have even had to accommodate Apple on that request: its already taken care of.

I think the best explanation for Verizon losing the iPhone is that they just had their heads up their asses.
 

rootboy

macrumors newbie
Jul 8, 2007
7
0
NY USA
3G is a non-issue in the US "hinterland"

Looking at ATT's 3G coverage maps I see that we don't have 3G service in our area -- in fact, it seems to be limited to large metropolitan areas. In second tier cities such as mine, EDGE is all we have. Lack of 3G in the iPhone is a non-issue here.
 

rob@robburns.co

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2007
162
0
Er... thanks for the lesson :rolleyes:

I wasn't using the "special" deal to say anything about what the wireless part of any deal should be, I was being very specific: that deal's price represents the bottom line, the limbo point, the level to which they can, if they choose, profitably provide a voice and text service, even the piggy-backers like Virgin, and similar deals have been spotted in the wild from all but one UK telco..

Well, you should have paid a little closer attention to the lesson rather than rolling your eyes. I wasn't trying to school you on some obvious point; the idea of marginal cost is something most people in the World (including CEOs of businesses) don't understand. The bottom line or limbo point you're looking for is £0 or 0$ based on today's currency conversion rate. Anything more than that and the carrier is making more profit. Or are you saying that the deal Virgin can cut with a carrier is the best Apple could hope for.

My guess is that Apple is going to want the hard limits removed from the data plan much more than any special rates. Also the surprise here wasn't due to iPhone rates being better than anything AT&T offered before. It was more over expectations many had that AT&T would try to gouge iPhone buyers (they didn't). Data plans in the US are often tiered by how much data the carrier "thinks" you'll be likely to transfer each month: anywhere from about $20 (for a phone where you'd rather throw it against the wall than browse the web with it) to about $60 (for laptop connections) per month. The fear was that since the iPhone was a device users would actually make use of for data transfers, that this might translate into a $40 or a $60 data plan. Instead it came in at $20 unlimited (actually unlimited).

Another indicator is this month's data card price war between T-Mobile and Vodafone, both now offering "unlimited" (3GB) for under £30 inc VAT.

That's amazing to me that you have "unlimited" data plans in the UK with a fixed limit. I thought in the US, we let our advertisers and markets play faster and looser with the truth than anywhere else in the World. Here the providers have "unlimited " plans that they don't want us using in an unlimited way, but they don't put any hard limits on it for fear of litigation.

That, and the base rate for voice and texts you choose to ignore, lead me to guess that, if the Euro iphone is 3G and offers Bluetooth pass-through (and it really does need both to cut it in Europe), the overall deal will come in at £39.99 inc VAT for 300 mins and 300 texts, just over $80.

I think you'll find I'm right.

Is this through palm reading or do you have another technique to tell the future?
 

scu

macrumors regular
Apr 9, 2005
182
0
I think the best explanation for Verizon losing the iPhone is that they just had their heads up their asses.

LOL:D This says it all. Verizon will feel the pain in 4 years after the 40th million iPhone is sold and Verizon just lost its 14th million customer. By the ATT will have improved their network, everyone will have 3G phones, and enjoying first video conf. on their phones.
 

ajhill

macrumors 6502
May 2, 2007
268
0
LOL:D This says it all. Verizon will feel the pain in 4 years after the 40th million iPhone is sold and Verizon just lost its 14th million customer. By the ATT will have improved their network, everyone will have 3G phones, and enjoying first video conf. on their phones.


Obviously Apple will benefit greatly by this. I wonder who is going to be the vendor on th ATT network build out? Cisco? Broadcom? Corning? (Fiber).

Or maybe Apple buys a company that is building out some sort of next generation network Wi-Max or some such technology.

Me, I'm just happy to have a phones that's at least 5 times better than my old, tired Razr. Sure it looked good, but it didn't do much.

You'd have to "pry my iPhone from my cold, dead hand to get it away from me" too! The quote, of course, is Steve Jobs at the last Apple Inc. shareholder's meeting.
 

j_maddison

macrumors 6502a
Mar 31, 2003
700
32
Nelson, Wales
Er... thanks for the lesson :rolleyes:

I wasn't using the "special" deal to say anything about what the wireless part of any deal should be, I was being very specific.

Oh you werent were you? Firstly you never mentioned it was a special deal, secondly you werent saying what you thought the wireless part of any deal should be?? perhaps you dont remember writing this?

Many people in the UK pay more than that to cover the cost of "subsidized" handsets but £10 is about the right base price for the voice/text segment of any package.

Sounds suspiciously like you were to me.........

:rolleyes:
 

CalfCanuck

macrumors 6502a
Nov 17, 2003
609
120
European "pay by the minute" vs US "unlimited calling"

US customers get charged for receiving calls??? Thats crazy!

Yes, the way they bill calls in the US is an entirely different approach. But the key difference is that it there is no additional charge (beyond long distance) for the CALLER to phone a cell phone. Local calls (generally within 12 miles or something like that) from a land line have been free and unlimited for decades, and so a local call to a cell phone is also free. (This also explains the appeal of thousands of local ISP dial-in numbers back in the days of modems.) This came from the old days when expensive long distance calls subsidized unlimited cheap local calls, but they were all the same carrier - the old ATT before it was broken up.

So I can call a friend's local cell phone from a land line, talk for an hour, and as the caller it will cost me nothing. As for the person receiving the call, it really is fairer to have them pay for using their cell phone. When I had my German pay-as -you go cell phone, I understood that any caller dialing me up was subsidizing my minimal monthly fees - they paid over 40 cents a minute to call me. So a 5 minute call, that cost me nothing to receive, was in fact quite expensive to the caller - 2 euros.

And be aware that most wireless carriers in the US have unlimited weekend and night minutes (for both calling and receiving). They usually also have unlimited calls 24 hours a day within their own cell phone networks (Verizon to Verizon, ATT to ATT, etc). So often you use fewer minutes than one would expect (expect for business).
 

Donnacha

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2006
230
42
Is this through palm reading or do you have another technique to tell the future?
Yes, palm reading. Just wait and you'll see that I'm right. £39.99 inc VAT, 300 mins and 300 texts, unlimited data ("fair use" limit of 3GB), no connection fee.
 

rob@robburns.co

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2007
162
0
Yes, palm reading. Just wait and you'll see that I'm right. £39.99 inc VAT, 300 mins and 300 texts, unlimited data ("fair use" limit of 3GB), no connection fee.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you being sarcastic now? £40 per month for service? That's a lot more than iPhone users are paying in the US. I thought the point you (and other have made too) was how inexpensive service is in UK.

AT&T iPhone plans start at $60 for 450 (daytime) minutes, unlimited night and weekend minutes, unlimited AT&T to AT&T minutes, 200 SMS messages, and unlimited (fair use unlimited) data. Add $15 (IIRC) and you've got unlimited SMS too.

It wouldn't surprise me that the rates are more in the UK, but others keep saying they're so inexpensive.

As I said before I think Apple will push for real unlimited data. After all, the iPhone will encourage much data transfer. And Apple doesn't want the reputation that iPhone will cost you unbelievable add-on charges for data (or get cut-off; what do they do when you hit 3GB). Someone had said you can't even download that much on Edge in a month. That may be. However, at 3mbit per second you'll download 3GB in just a few hours. At Edge speeds speeds it would take maybe 6 times that or 18 hours. A few hours on 3G and your unlimited allotment is used up?
 

Donnacha

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2006
230
42
Oh you werent were you? Firstly you never mentioned it was a special deal,
The point wasn't that it was a special deal, what the Hell is a special deal anyway? Any phone "deal" could be considered special, the point about ones like this, whether 300/300 for £10 to 500/500 for £15 inc VAT, is that they represent what currently appear to be the lowest prices regularly made available by almost all the UK carriers to members of the general public without long-term contracts or strings attached.

I would consider a special deal, in the sense that you use it, to mean something that is available only to, say, NHS staff and is considerably cheaper than anything made regularly available to members of the general public.

secondly you werent saying what you thought the wireless part of any deal should be?? perhaps you dont remember writing this?

Originally Posted by Donnacha

Many people in the UK pay more than that to cover the cost of "subsidized" handsets but £10 is about the right base price for the voice/text segment of any package.

Sounds suspiciously like you were to me.........

:rolleyes:
Wrong again, Jay. Looks suspiciously like I specifically said voice/text, not one word about wireless there - perhaps you should read an excerpt before you flourish it.

I base my estimate for the wireless segment, instead, upon the price range that data card deals have been pushed down to within the past fortnight - stick those two observations and amounts together, I believe we've got ourselves the right figure.
 

rob@robburns.co

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2007
162
0
As I said before I think Apple will push for real unlimited data. After all, the iPhone will encourage much data transfer. And Apple doesn't want the reputation that iPhone will cost you unbelievable add-on charges for data (or get cut-off; what do they do when you hit 3GB). Someone had said you can't even download that much on Edge in a month. That may be. However, at 3mbit per second you'll download 3GB in just a few hours. At Edge speeds speeds it would take maybe 6 times that or 18 hours. A few hours on 3G and your unlimited allotment is used up?

The more I think about this the more astonished I am. Is this 3GB limit just a UK thing or is this something throughout Euorpe? What good is 3G if you're limited to 3GB? There are a lot of phone users in the US, that would never go over 3GB but that's because the phones are made to make browsing the web extremely painful. Only those tethering their phones to their laptops are going to be able to transfer much more data than that. However, iPhone changes the whole game. You can download that much in a few days messing around with the YouTube app.
 

Donnacha

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2006
230
42
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you being sarcastic now? £40 per month for service. That's a lot more than iPhone users are paying in the US. I thought the point you (and other have made too) was how inexpensive service is in UK.
Nothing in the UK is inexpensive compared to America except healthcare (and, frankly, if we can have one thing everyone, even the homeless, can afford, healthcare is not a bad choice!).

Bear in mind that all UK prices include VAT @ 17.5%, which pays for a lot of other public services that are privatized in the States, so, that's built into the cost of pretty much everything we buy.

AT&T iPhone plans start at $60 for 450 (daytime) minutes, unlimited night and weekend minutes, unlimited AT&T to AT&T minutes, 200 SMS messages, and unlimited (fair use unlimited) data. Add $15 (IIRC) and you've got unlimited SMS too.

It wouldn't surprise me that the rates are more in the UK, but others keep saying they're so inexpensive.
Hmmm ... I'd take Europeans bragging about their mobiles with a pinch of salt - phones are about the only area of technology where the US has messed up badly, so, folks over here tend to go on about it a bit much. In my experience, the vast majority of people here in the UK are suckered into really bad deals anyway because they don't understand who is ultimately going to pay for that nice, shiny phone. Seriously, most people aren't even aware when they're signing up for 18 rather than 12 months.

As I said before I think Apple will push for real unlimited data. After all, the iPhone will encourage much data transfer. And Apple doesn't want the reputation that iPhone will cost you unbelievable add-on charges for data (or get cut-off; what do they do when you hit 3GB). Someone had said you can't even download that much on Edge in a month. However, at 256mbit per second you'll download 3GBi in just a few hours. At 3G speeds it could happen in under an hour. Under an hour and your unlimited allotment is used up?
Yeah, you're right, one of the main thrusts behind the iphone is the re-invention of data as an always-on utility that you don't have to think about. The problem is that, as you note, the 3G European consumers will demand, coupled with the concept of unlimited data, creates problems and costs for the telcos that Edge could never generate. That's why I'm basing the second part of my costings on the (recently slashed) prices of "unlimited" non-voice/text 3G data card plans, because that's the only valid existing comparison.

That's the other reason why the UK will be more expensive than the US, because the buyer will actually be demanding and getting more.
 

Donnacha

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2006
230
42
The more I think about this the more astonished I am. Is this 3GB limit just a UK thing or is this something throughout Euorpe? What good is 3G if you're limited to 3GB? There are a lot of phone users in the US, that would never go over 3GB but that's because the phones are made to make browsing the web extremely painful. Only those tethering their phones to their laptops are going to be able to transfer much more data than that. However, iPhone changes the whole game. You can download that much in a few days messing around with the YouTube app.
It's not a hard limit and would only be a problem if you persistently went over it. 3GB is actually loads unless you're torrenting or whatever. In terms of speed, HDSPA is limited (by the telcos) to, I think, 1.8Mb, with a possible jump to 3.6 in the near future and, ultimately, 7.2, so, nowhere near as fast as the cable connections most of us have.

These limits, called "fair use" policies, are used by many ISPs in the UK and are mainly targetted at peopled consistently swapping huges amount of stuff. The ISPs in the States shape bandwidth and generally mess their customers around too, they just don't admit it.
 

rob@robburns.co

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2007
162
0
These limits, called "fair use" policies, are used by many ISPs in the UK and are mainly targetted at peopled consistently swapping huges amount of stuff. The ISPs in the States shape bandwidth and generally mess their customers around too, they just don't admit it.

I have to say there's something very Orwellian about an unlimited data plan that's limited be 3GB or fair use. What would be fair would be to name the plan after the amount of data transfer I'll actually be limited too (even if its not a hard and fast limit). I guess I expect marketing speak to be a little more restricted in Europe than the US, but I don't think they could get away with that here. Yes, there are stories of customers being dropped for using too much data on their unlimited data plans, but here they don't give you even a ballpark estimate of what they would consider too much. Maybe its only a subtle difference, but it just strikes me as a little odd.

In any even, I just don't think those limits are going to work with iPhone (in US or UK). Fair use data transfer for an iPhone would probably need to be 10x or 20x the 3GB limit. Especially if Apple made iTunes store content available over the net directly to the iPhone (rather than syncing through iTunes), as many have bee hoping for.
 

Donnacha

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2006
230
42
Well, obviously, it would be nice if there were no limits on anything but given that we're talking about a shared infrastructure that we're all paying for and which most of us use in bursts, I can see how people permanently drawing as much from the systems as they can would slow things down for everyone and that is, of course, not fair.

The best analogy I can think of is a city's water system - it's create to be able to draw a bath when you want but, obviously, we can't all do it at the same time or, worse, leaving our bathes running unplugged.

Some file-swappers are the exactly equivalent of someone leaving their bath running and unplugged all day, particularly if they are part of a neighborhood cable circuit. If every apartment in your building started running out of water because a guy on the fifth floor was using huge amounts of water to run some sort of hydroponic or industrial process in his spare room, you'd consider that an unfair use of a shared resource and insist they made private arrangements.

What the fair use policies are saying is, "Look, we created this really cheap broadband package and it's cheap because 95% of our customers just surf and watch youtube, but now we see that 50% of our bandwidth costs are going towards maintaining 5% of our users. This package is not designed for you, if you want to squeeze that much out of your connection, pay an extra £5 or £10 to go with one the ISPs who aren't targeting the mainstream market"

I think that's fair enough because, with ADSL at least, there are tons of providers. Myself, I'm on cable, Virgin, and they've recently introduced there own version of a fair use policy: if they detect more than 1GB of torrent activity during peak times (between 4pm and midnight) they will narrow your bandwidth - you're still able to surf etc but your torrents slow to a crawl. As I understand it, the shaping is removed once peak time finishes and is not re-instated unless you, once again, exceed the peak time limit.

I torrent quite a bit, so, yeah, a tad inconvenient for me but, to be fair, I was probably inconveniencing others. What the Hell, I'll pay $20 a month for a good Usenet provider and get my stuff far more bandwidth-efficiently than torrenting anyway.
 

dale.albiston

macrumors member
Sep 29, 2006
61
0
i think i read osmewhere the advertising standards people would let the 'unlimited' thing fly as long as the fair usage bit was in the same advert somewhere, and it had to be 'fair'*, its something like 80% of users must be below the limit, i also think that if a service is advertised as being suitble for video downloads then caps are silly.

BT are currently pushing a set top box that connects to the net via broadband to watch pay per view films.. I'm willing to bet the data is considered part of your BB usage allowance.. this is crap..


* they have a strange definition of fair, personally i';d like to see the limits advertised directly.
 

manu chao

macrumors 604
Jul 30, 2003
7,219
3,031
Yes, the way they bill calls in the US is an entirely different approach. But the key difference is that it there is no additional charge (beyond long distance) for the CALLER to phone a cell phone. [...]

In the end is just a different kind of business model. The advantage of the business model might have been that since getting a cell phone (and waiting to be called) was relatively cheap, a lot of people early got cell phones. It kick-started the market much faster. Once all these cell phones were around, not having one became an anachronism. Moreover, people having the cell phones could not resist the temptation to wait to be called but started calling other people themselves. So, from the business side it probably was pretty smart move.

But also from the personal feeling what is right, I think the European model is preferable. Those who take action (ie, call other people) should be the ones paying for it. If a business wants to call their customers, it shouldn't be the customers paying for it. If your friend wants to talk to you for hours, (s)he should pay for it. I should add that cell phones in most if not all European countries always had a different area code, the caller always new (s)he was paying more.
 

Yixian

macrumors 65816
Jun 2, 2007
1,483
135
Europe
When they say "very soon" what kind of time frame are we talking about here? Before September? Before October?
 

j_maddison

macrumors 6502a
Mar 31, 2003
700
32
Nelson, Wales
The point wasn't that it was a special deal, what the Hell is a special deal anyway? Any phone "deal" could be considered special, the point about ones like this, whether 300/300 for £10 to 500/500 for £15 inc VAT, is that they represent what currently appear to be the lowest prices regularly made available by almost all the UK carriers to members of the general public without long-term contracts or strings attached.

I would consider a special deal, in the sense that you use it, to mean something that is available only to, say, NHS staff and is considerably cheaper than anything made regularly available to members of the general public.


Wrong again, Jay. Looks suspiciously like I specifically said voice/text, not one word about wireless there - perhaps you should read an excerpt before you flourish it.

I base my estimate for the wireless segment, instead, upon the price range that data card deals have been pushed down to within the past fortnight - stick those two observations and amounts together, I believe we've got ourselves the right figure.

Listen, you keep changing the goal post because you wont admit you're wrong about something. You try to put words into peoples mouths, and when they correct you, you resort to personal remarks. I didnt say you were talking about the wireless (data) element, I just said wireless. Wireless means wireless, and as your original post said text and voice, it's pretty obvious that I was replying to that statement. Your post clearly said it was voice and data. £10 is an unrealistic tariff for most people, because the majority of customers in the uk who are on a contract pay at least double if nto trebble that.

It is a special deal in the sense of it is not a standard tariff that is offered across the board. The cell companies offer special deals, as do alot of companies who sell products or services, throughout the year. The four main networks dont offer many of the caveats of the Virgin deal. And as already stated, by others, its a deal that is only avaiable to Virgin cable customers. many people in the UK don't live in a cable area, which means they can't take advantage of that specific deal.

OllyW, koobcamuk, and rob@robburns.co all replied in an inteligent and civil manner, heed their example

Jay
 

smiddlehurst

macrumors 65816
Jun 5, 2007
1,228
30
At the moment, in the UK, I'm paying £10 per month (including taxes) for 300 rollover minutes to any country, including foreign mobiles, and 300 texts.

As is customary in Europe, I do not lose minutes for incoming calls (caller pays, always), so, I find that 300 rollover minutes are enough for my needs.

Many people in the UK pay more than that to cover the cost of "subsidized" handsets but £10 is about the right base price for the voice/text segment of any package.

I would value the addition of unlimited 3G data at around £20, possibly five or ten pounds more if I can pass connectivity through to my MBP via Bluetooth.

I think that, whoever they go with, Apple need to recognize that the European market tends to be less price sensitive than the American market but we won't tolerate crippled services as much: we love 3G and using our phones as modems for our laptops, missing features that didn't really bother the American market.

Funny, but I'm British and I don't really recognise the country / average user that you're describing here.

The killer apps in the UK are text messaging and photographs. It is very rare indeed that I see someone connecting their laptop via a 3G phone to the net (they're far more likely to go sit in Starbucks and pay for Wi-fi). In fact 3G as a whole has pretty much been a flop in this country so far with the networks struggling to even start to make back the money they've invested in it. They keep introducing new toys to make use of the bandwidth (the latest is Sky television on demand) but the demand just isn't there.

Actually, thinking about it, I was wrong when I said the killer apps were text and photos. Those are certainly two of the main attractions but pale into insignificance when compared to the big 'un: Style. People upgrade their handsets at an incredible rate, often only barely getting to the end of their contract before upgrading. The number of functions a phone has is important, but only for something to throw into pub conversations about how YOUR mobile can control the oxygen supply on the international space station while THEIRS can't even make you a cup of tea when the alarm goes off. The sleeker and 'sexier' the handset, the more that get sold, doubly so if you get a model that looks like a million bucks and happens to be just expensive enough to keep it out of the hands of the great unwashed (remember the RAZR when that first came out?).

Apple is going to succeed in this market, end of story. No-one will care that you can't install third party applications (sorry, no-one who isn't a techie geek like the vast majority of us macrumors posters) or whatever other fault may exist because the conversation will go like this:

You: I just got a new iPhone *deliberately flashy reveal of shiny thing*
Crowd: AAaauuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh *lake of drool instantly forms*
Annoying Git: Ah but can you install thirteen thousand and one applications on it?
You: No
Annoying Git: See, it's CRAP, mine will let you construct a perpetual mot...
You: (interrupting) but I can touch my music using this object of art they call a user interface.
Crowd: All hail our new lord! Kill the false god!
Annoying Git: My Torso!

Sad but true. On the plus side, as the other handset manufacturers catch up, maybe we'll finally see phones moving on with user interfaces and design that don't just look like something from about five years ago.

Also, just while I think about it, what network are you on that gives you £10 per month (including taxes) for 300 rollover minutes to any country, including foreign mobiles, and 300 texts? I haven't seen anything close to that from the UK networks, £20 seems to be the average starting point and that doesn't include international minutes.
 

Donnacha

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2006
230
42
I don't see how being British would mean that you are automatically aware of how far the market has descended at any given time - most people, once every couple of years, ask a few friends what they are paying and then walk into the nearest high-street phone shop and get talked into paying more. And that's it for another two years.

The package I got was from Virgin but there are similar offers from all but one of the UK telcos - you just have to be willing to avoid the retail outlets, have your own unlocked phone and hope on the right deal when you find it.

The typical £20 deal you're talking about is probably more or less the same thing except that you're also paying £5/£10 per month for 18 months for a phone that cost them £30 wholesale; that's what pays for all those lovely suits and hair-gel.

I seriously question your contention that photos are the killer app - all the surveys suggest that it stubbornly remains. People might send a photo or two when they first get the capability but then they forget about it - it certainly hasn't taken off in the way the telcos had hoped. Text messaging - well, far more used then photos, but a surprising number of people never use their bundled texts.

Wi-Fi is nowhere near as useful in UK cities as it is in the US. For some reason, cafe and other location owners didn't see the point of attracting customers with a free service and, instead, signed up to meta-services that involve credit-card sign-up and ridiculous per hour fees. This includes, as you say, Starbucks in the UK, so, we have not developed the same "coffee-shop entrepreneur" culture. What that missed opportunity has done, however, is create a market for 3G data cards because £1 per day of seamless is a better deal than £5 per hour and the bother of signing up at each new location. I know plenty of people who love broadband everywhere, so, I think you're somewhat premature in calling it a flop.

Yes, style is important and that will be a major plus for the iphone but they will find it hard to override the negative whispers if they take a step back from 3G - people might not know the exact difference, but their knowledgeable friends will have write off a 2.5G phone before it even arrives, substantially pricked the hype bubble that the fashionistas need.

Funny, but I'm British and I don't really recognise the country / average user that you're describing here.

The killer apps in the UK are text messaging and photographs. It is very rare indeed that I see someone connecting their laptop via a 3G phone to the net (they're far more likely to go sit in Starbucks and pay for Wi-fi). In fact 3G as a whole has pretty much been a flop in this country so far with the networks struggling to even start to make back the money they've invested in it. They keep introducing new toys to make use of the bandwidth (the latest is Sky television on demand) but the demand just isn't there.

Actually, thinking about it, I was wrong when I said the killer apps were text and photos. Those are certainly two of the main attractions but pale into insignificance when compared to the big 'un: Style. People upgrade their handsets at an incredible rate, often only barely getting to the end of their contract before upgrading. The number of functions a phone has is important, but only for something to throw into pub conversations about how YOUR mobile can control the oxygen supply on the international space station while THEIRS can't even make you a cup of tea when the alarm goes off. The sleeker and 'sexier' the handset, the more that get sold, doubly so if you get a model that looks like a million bucks and happens to be just expensive enough to keep it out of the hands of the great unwashed (remember the RAZR when that first came out?).

Apple is going to succeed in this market, end of story. No-one will care that you can't install third party applications (sorry, no-one who isn't a techie geek like the vast majority of us macrumors posters) or whatever other fault may exist because the conversation will go like this:

You: I just got a new iPhone *deliberately flashy reveal of shiny thing*
Crowd: AAaauuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh *lake of drool instantly forms*
Annoying Git: Ah but can you install thirteen thousand and one applications on it?
You: No
Annoying Git: See, it's CRAP, mine will let you construct a perpetual mot...
You: (interrupting) but I can touch my music using this object of art they call a user interface.
Crowd: All hail our new lord! Kill the false god!
Annoying Git: My Torso!

Sad but true. On the plus side, as the other handset manufacturers catch up, maybe we'll finally see phones moving on with user interfaces and design that don't just look like something from about five years ago.

Also, just while I think about it, what network are you on that gives you £10 per month (including taxes) for 300 rollover minutes to any country, including foreign mobiles, and 300 texts? I haven't seen anything close to that from the UK networks, £20 seems to be the average starting point and that doesn't include international minutes.
 

Donnacha

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2006
230
42
Jay, I've noticed before in your responses to what other people write, you often get the wrong end of stick and end up having what amounts to a conversation with yourself.

I was never talking about what most people pay, incorporating the cost of flashy stores and phones loaded with higher-purchase profit margins - did you know, for instance, that the phone salesperson has a 20% margin for negotiated discounts?

My goal was to identify, roughly, what the "real" cost of voice + text is, with all that nonsense stripped out. £10/£15 offers are common and almost always available, regardless of what are you live in and without strings attached. I think you'll find that identifying the lowest possible price for certain things is generally considered a good starting point when trying to guess the price of similar things.
 

thecritix

macrumors 6502
Dec 11, 2006
284
0
West London, England
I've used O2 before and it's not exactly great in my opinion.

I'm currently on a Vodafone contract which -- as far as I'm aware -- has a much more reliable network.

Even if it IS O2, I'm sure I'd make the switch when my contract is done. If they choose EDGE over 3G it won't be much of a deal-breaker for me, but who has EDGE in UK? Eeek!

orange...
but they're rubbish

if o2 dont drop their data prices I don't think I'll get the iphone, they're an absolute joke, i think it works out about $4 per mb.
 

whiteboytrash

macrumors 6502
Jul 15, 2007
471
158
not vodafone or t-mobile...

I sat at a corporate table for the Tour de France in London last weekend and at the table were representatives from T-Mobile and Vodafone and both of them confirmed that their respective companies hadn't won the iPhone deal.... which leaves O2.....
 
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