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Yeah, but surfing the web is going to be just as fast at best.
Page rendering on the iPhone will be slower in most cases due to the slower processor.

....but network handling may be different. TCP stack may be different etc etc. Safari will be different (that PCMCIA connected device was an OSX machine running Safari yes?).

A direct comparison is hard to do.

However, you may have a point as my iPhone won't be in my grubby mitts until 9.11.07. I'll know then.
 
Maybe T-Mobile is just testing the field with this!?
I just received an email with regards to November 9th release.
They sent no rate information - they wrote we have to wait another week for that.

So just sit an wait (as usual ;-))
 
Maybe T-Mobile is just testing the field with this!?
I just received an email with regards to November 9th release.
They sent no rate information - they wrote we have to wait another week for that.

Yup, I can confirm this - same email received over here. Good news: You can transfer your number to the iPhone contract.

However, thinking realistically about these numbers: They look very much like T-Mobile might go for them. If they set the price and entry points lower, they'll piss off their existing customers (or new customers to the old plans for that matter). After all if an existing T-Mobile customer changes contracts and moves to an iPhone Apple wins but T-Mobile probably gets less money out of the customer.

The only people they are after are new customers changing over from other carriers (me).
 
Keep in mind, that all prices in Germany include all taxes (federal, state, VAT) and fees (universal service, number etc.)
So if you only phone 100 minutes and make 40 SMS and you are on the small plan, you will only have to pay 49 Euro.
In the US, there are several taxes and fees that end up on top of the announced monthly plan.

On the other hand if you get yourself O2 Inklusive Pakete you get 100 minutes and 100 SMS for 10 Euros (or 20 if you get free handset too). Add to that 5 Euros for unlimited WAP browsing, or, if you want regular "full internet" 10 Euros for 200MB/Month or 25 Euros for 5000MB and you get yourself a better deal :)
Buy unlocked iPhone, use it with O2 :D
 
On the other hand if you get yourself O2 Inklusive Pakete you get 100 minutes and 100 SMS for 10 Euros (or 20 if you get free handset too). Add to that 5 Euros for unlimited WAP browsing, or, if you want regular "full internet" 10 Euros for 200MB/Month or 25 Euros for 5000MB and you get yourself a better deal :)
Buy unlocked iPhone, use it with O2 :D

this would be 47 euro: 10 for 10min, 12 for 100sms, 25 for 5000MB and you cant use wifi-hotspot and mobilebox-feature.
 
and you have to keep in mind, that there is no EDGE on the O2 network, so you will have to use GPRS. And even though EDGE is not really fast, it's still five times faster than GPRS..
 
this would be 47 euro: 10 for 10min, 12 for 100sms, 25 for 5000MB and you cant use wifi-hotspot and mobilebox-feature.
Incorrect. 100 outgoing SMS are included free or take another 15% discount for ordering online, which applies to data too (UMTS, yay!).
If you don't want to tether and just browse/email from your handset, WAP package Surf und E-Mail Pack should probably be enough, which is 5 Euros and is unlimited. So it's either 35 Euro (10 for 100 mins+100 free SMS, 25 for 5000Mb) or 15 Euros.
With UMTS I didn't really try to use any wifi hotspots anyways. Wish there was UMTS iPhone...
 
and you have to keep in mind, that there is no EDGE on the O2 network, so you will have to use GPRS. And even though EDGE is not really fast, it's still five times faster than GPRS..
The worst part of GPRS/EDGE is that calls will go to voicemail while you're actively downloading (if there's a pause in the session then phone will ring) otherwise it's slow no matter what :( Though given that O2 allows roaming on T-Mobile ... ;)
 
I wonder how the Norwegian iPhone rate plan will end up being..?

My current rate plan: (excluding tax)
$0 / month
120 free minutes ($0,10 per minute after your 120mins, $0,10 after 400mins)
90 free sms ($0,05 per sms after your 90 free sms's.)
data, $0,60 per MB.
voicemail, $2,40 / month.

I'm sure the iPhone plans will be higher than this, but I hope they'll be nowhere near what they've been in all the other countries. The prices are crazy!
 
Yep, it's a stupid system IMO, coming from Australia where the caller pays all. It sucks even more when some company cold-calls me trying to sell me something, I end up paying for the call! Not to mention being charged in and out SMS, that's just plain double-dipping...
That price plan is definitely a kick in the sensitive area.

In Canada we get screwed over in wireless plans in general, although I'm much luckier than some, $12 plan that includes 250 daytime minutes, unlimited nights starting at 5PM, unlimited weekends, 1000 Canadian Long distance minutes for $5, 5 megabytes of data for $5, and Unlimited SMS to Canadian/US mobile phones for $6.67 (if sent within Canada).

Under $30 for all that, I'm pretty spoiled
 
The minutes of the plan definitely stink, but I must say that getting free access to T-Moblie's wifi network is pretty sweet.

Well, for me as a T-Com customer that comes with my DSL subscription, so for me this deal is pretty expensive.
And although 8500 hot spots sound great, I must say that in smaller towns it's almost impossible to find a spot... or the available spots are somewhere you never go :)

This is the beauty of Hotspots, though, as many ICE trains have them. So you could take an ICE from Frankfurt to Berlin, and possibly access unlimited WiFi for free the entire journey!

How often do you travel with the ICE from Frankfurt to Berlin (104 EUR without the Bahncard50)?

I live in Münster and we have like 20 Hot Spots - only at cafes and stuff like that where I mostly meet friends and have a nice chat with them rather than surfing and zooming on a small screen. The whole thing looks great on paper, but I really don't see a big use of these Hot Spots...
 
Man that's insane. I was just putting together the numbers and the US equivalent of that with tmobile would be around $65 a month. ($40 1000 min plan (contract of course) + $5 SMSes + $20 internet and hotspots)...

They have to pay twice as much.. and TMo is a german company. WTF?!
 
erhm.. that's expensive.

my current plan (in sweden) costs €0.06 per CALL (unlimited minutes), SMS or MMS. granted the data cost is very high (€1.21 per MB) but if you don't use 3G/WAP, it gets very cheap.

the monthly cost is €14.75.
 
He didn't confirm these rates, he has just said, that the cheapest plan will be less than 50€ a month.
 
You really cant compare the German CellPhone rates with the rest of Europe.

I am from Austria, and i am also using T-Mobile (The Austrian Branch).

My Plan is 25 € for 1000 Minutes too landlines, 1000 Minutes to other TMobile Cell Phones, and 1000 Minutes to all other Cell Phone Companys. I do have to pay extra for texts though ... but at 20cent / each thats not that much ... so all in all my cell phone bill is +- 30 € a month.

Tmobile has a new Data plan out here now which i got which costs 25 € / month including 10 GB traffic on their 3G network.

So at 55 € a month i got more or less endless phone calls (i never used all my minutes up) and more then enough traffic for my mobile data needs.

Oh btw cause someone said that internet is so expansive in Europe. It depends where. I am paying 29€ for a 20 Mbit / flat line in Vienna. so here its cheap ... my cousins on the other hand who live in a more rural area are totally screwed. They pay like 40 € for a 4Mbit line with a 10 GB traffic limit.

Oh and btw : Those prices are with all taxes included. (which makes it a tad easier to compare imho)

The prices vary so much between the countries in Europe that you just cant say "The US is cheaper" or "Europe is cheaper".

And even a direct comparison of the price by saying "OMG the plan is like 80 bucks US" makes hardly any sense cause the buying power of the USD is so low at the moment. (thats also why i am sooo looking forward to christms shopping in New York this year). If the USD / EUR value would be 1:1 or close to that then you could compare the price. And even then its complicated.
 
Heftige Preise, very expensive. I think, Apple makes a big mistake with the iPhone in Germany. You must understand – lot of people hier in Germany know nothing about Apple and the History of the company. Germany is – for 98 Percent – a Microsoft-Country. The Macuser here meet each other in special meetings called "Treffs" - the only possibility to see other Users with Macs.

And a lot of people hier in Germany think, Apple Products are too expensive. And they think, Apple Products are very special - the products are closed and locked for other software. The iPod was for the people here the first contact with Apple - and they like it. But now Apple want to sell the iPhone here – SIM-locked, closed and expensive. I hear often "it's typical for Apple" - and i think, Apple lost with this iPhone-Politics a lot of Sympathies here.
Heftige Preise, very expensive. I think, Apple makes a big mistake with the iPhone in Germany. You must understand – lot of people hier in Germany know nothing about Apple and the History of the company. Germany is – for 98 Percent – a Microsoft-Country. The Macuser here meet each other in special meetings called "Treffs" - the only possibility to see other Users with Macs.

And a lot of people hier in Germany think, Apple Products are too expensive. And they think, Apple Products are very special - the products are closed and locked for other software. The iPod was for the people here the first contact with Apple - and they like it. But now Apple want to sell the iPhone here – SIM-locked, closed and expensive. I hear often "it's typical for Apple" - and i think, Apple lost with this iPhone-Politics a lot of Sympathies here.

Viele in meiner Umgebung suchen eine Alternative zu Microsoft-Produkten – doch Apples iPhone-Politik sorgt nicht gerade für Vertrauen.
 
Yep, it's a stupid system IMO, coming from Australia where the caller pays all. It sucks even more when some company cold-calls me trying to sell me something, I end up paying for the call! Not to mention being charged in and out SMS, that's just plain double-dipping...
Called-party-pays (the system in the US, Canada, China, Singapore, etc.) makes more economic sense - for this reason Australia is considering switching.

If you have "free" incoming calls, then anyone who wants to call you has to pay a rate which set by your mobile carrier.

However, the people who call you have no market power over that rate. If they don't like it, they can't switch carriers, because they're not the customer - you are.

The result is that mobile termination costs tend to be quite high in caller-pays markets, often making up the bulk of revenues.

As you can imagine, a market in which the bulk of revenues are levied as a virtual tax on people with no market power (the callers) does not make for effective competition.

This is why total per-minute call costs (cost of dialing plus cost of answering the same call) are on average higher in Europe than in USA. And it's why regulators in Europe are constantly wringing their hands over fiddling with the market because they can't get rates down anywhere near the marginal costs of providing the service.

Wholesale origination + termination (total end-to-end cost for a call) in the USA is around €0,01. In many European markets it's €0.10 or more.

In the long run I think you will find that most non-monopoly markets will move to called-party-pays as Asian countries are starting to, and USA/Canada have done all along. The only alternatives are heavy-handed regulation, or persistently high charges and the accompanying economic friction.

There are easy solutions for the telemarketer problem - for example, just regulate that the first 30 seconds of an incoming call have to be free unless it is a number you have dialed before.
 
T-mobile are greedy people. They were always more expensive than other German carriers. I'm with e-Plus, and haven't signed a contract. I prefer pay-as-you-go. Here in Germany I'm with Blau, when I'm in the UK I have a pay-as-you-go sim-card running with Virgin Mobile. Blau charges me 5 cent/Min for calls to other Blau numbers, 15 cent to landlines and any other German mobile networks... Sending a SMS sets me back 10 cent. Remember I don't have to pay monthly fees and am free to not charge my card for half a year until my number gets voided. In Europe, pay-as-you-go is usually even more expensive than opting for a regular contract.

Also customers in Europe don't have to pay for incoming calls.

So my pay-as-you-go "contract" is not a bad deal after all - compared to the iPhone contract it is indeed a very good choice. I've read the article in Der Spiegel, and they mentioned that it's about as expensive as the UK's O2 contract.... Can't comment on that for that I don't know O2's price scheme. I really don't get why Apple chose T-Mobile over E-Plus. E-Plus is a decent provider with quite cheap rates and their coverage is now as good as T-Mobiles and you can even get a flatrate for free, unlimited calls to landlines and other E-Plus numbers... WiFi coverage in western Europe is just as good or as bad as WiFi coverage in the US....

In my oppinion the T-Mobile rates are just hideous, but what do you expect when going with T-Mobile?

cheers,
jan
 
Wow, those are sweet prices. I thought Germany had low prices on Internet but that's cool. I don't think they even have 20Mbit in Germany yet.

Umm, you're wrong. German Telekom offers VDSL with 50Mbit/s in the larger cities. They do charge you >65€, but that seems reasonable, since it's triple play (IPTV, Phone, Internet).
And you get unlimited internet with 16Mbit/s for €25.

Back to Topic:
Those prices aren't cheap, but it could have been worse. Remember, real unlimited calling still is at least 68€ (O2 68€, eplus/BASE 75€, vodafone and t-mobile don't offer real unlimited calling), and that neither includes text (mostly 0.19€ per message), nor data.
Soft limit data flatrates (5GB) are offered for about 45€ at T-Mobile, with vodafone there is a hidden option that gets you unlimited 3G-access for 10€ extra.
Anyways, the iPhone is not worth the money if you compare it to the Nokia n95, which does not offer a touchscreen or has great battery life, but is superior with its HSDPA and GPS capabilities. Add multimedia-messaging and gimmicks like your own MP3-ringtone, and you get a more functional phone at lower cost. And since HSDPA is offered with 7.2Mbit/s and quite good coverage, it would be stupid to go with the iPhone.
 
Umm, you're wrong. German Telekom offers VDSL with 50Mbit/s in the larger cities. They do charge you >65€, but that seems reasonable, since it's triple play (IPTV, Phone, Internet).
And you get unlimited internet with 16Mbit/s for €25.

Back to Topic:
Those prices aren't cheap, but it could have been worse. Remember, real unlimited calling still is at least 68€ (O2 68€, eplus/BASE 75€, vodafone and t-mobile don't offer real unlimited calling), and that neither includes text (mostly 0.19€ per message), nor data.
Soft limit data flatrates (5GB) are offered for about 45€ at T-Mobile, with vodafone there is a hidden option that gets you unlimited 3G-access for 10€ extra.
Anyways, the iPhone is not worth the money if you compare it to the Nokia n95, which does not offer a touchscreen or has great battery life, but is superior with its HSDPA and GPS capabilities. Add multimedia-messaging and gimmicks like your own MP3-ringtone, and you get a more functional phone at lower cost. And since HSDPA is offered with 7.2Mbit/s and quite good coverage, it would be stupid to go with the iPhone.

Goes to show how fast technology changes. And I have only been living abroad for 2 years.
I want that 50MBit VDSL. :D
 
With regards to the 100min included: Keep in mind that most likely these will be counted using 60/60 or 60/1 slots. In the end this translates to just 100 calls per month (max.), i.e. approx. three a day.

Damn, I was really looking forward getting an iPhone and even though I can easily afford 50,- €/month getting less than 100 calls (and a laughable amount of text messages) for that amount of money? Sorry, no deal. :(
 
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