T-Mobile Germany Offering Subsidized iPhones with 2 Year Contract

[sleepingworker]

In fact that's the way it's always worked in europe. We don't mind contracts as long as we get something in return - a cheaper phone (often free on the higher contracts). To pay full price *and* be locked in is fairly unique.

This how it was in the States as well (as far as I can remember) until the introduction of the iPhone.

When the iPhone was released, it probably was discounted. It's just that the discount was not granted by the provider but by Apple.

I couldn't help but notice the italics. By "discounted" do you mean selling below cost or at a price where the carrier doesn't make a profit on the handset? That is what carriers do when they sell you a RAZR for $99.99 and have you locked into a contract. If the iPhone was discounted when released this past June, by how much was it discounted? And assuming based on your post that it was, wouldn't it still continue to be discounted - especially as the SSD has increased in capacity?

 

[xJulianx]

Excuse my ignorance but what will be so good about a 3G iPhone?

 

[reverie]

Excuse my ignorance but what will be so good about a 3G iPhone?

Nothing if Apple doesn't add some other new features at the same time, something more tangible to the user, though I don't know what that would be.

 

[paroparo]

I do not see how the y will be able to sell any iPhones at all here in Germany, cause not only I have to pay for the phone (which is fine with me), but I have to tie myself to a 2 year 50 euro/month contract with the from T-Mobile.

(If you do not believe me try the website for the actual contact pricing)

 

[seedster2]

This is yet another indicator that the iPhone is not selling as well as they hoped in Europe. I estimate that the impending 3G revision has less to do with this adjustment than the lackluster sales figures.

This business model will require significant changes and/or a truly compelling device to make users switch carriers to pay these absurd monthly fees. This model has been somewhat successful here, but not globally.

Foreign users are simply importing unlocked devices and using their preferred carrier. It is likely why many other telecoms are now confidently baulking at Apple's unprecedented demands. The launch of 3G iteration will likely reflect lessons learned.

What incentive does a carrier have to charge flat rates for data, incur costs for VM and share profits when John Doe can simply buy the device eslewhere and use it with his existing plan and not extend his contract?

 

[0098386]

Excuse my ignorance but what will be so good about a 3G iPhone?

Roughly 3x faster than Edge, ability to do online stuff whilst in a call (semi important?). Plus 3G chips can fall back to Edge if need be so nobody is left out.

It's what every new phone over £150 has as standard. £200+ phones usually have 3.5G which is crazy fast (although sparse reception).

 

[sleepingworker]

Excuse my ignorance but what will be so good about a 3G iPhone?

"3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology, superseding 2G.

3G technologies enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephony and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Typically, they provide service at 5-10 Mb per second.
Unlike IEEE 802.11 networks, 3G networks are wide area cellular telephone networks which evolved to incorporate high-speed internet access and video telephony. IEEE 802.11 (common names Wi-Fi or WLAN) networks are short range, high-bandwidth networks primarily developed for data.

The most significant feature of 3G mobile technology is that it supports greater numbers of voice and data customers — especially in urban areas — and higher data rates at lower incremental cost than 2G."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G

 

[xJulianx]

Roughly 3x faster than Edge, ability to do online stuff whilst in a call (semi important?). Plus 3G chips can fall back to Edge if need be so nobody is left out...

"3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology, superseding 2G....

Ah I see, now I understand all the excitement. Thanks

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

Roughly 3x faster than Edge, ability to do online stuff whilst in a call (semi important?). Plus 3G chips can fall back to Edge if need be so nobody is left out.

It's what every new phone over £150 has as standard. £200+ phones usually have 3.5G which is crazy fast (although sparse reception).

Tell you what, I have 3G permanently disabled on my Nokia. It eats up battery like nothing!

First, 3G coverage is usually not that great (outside of major cities), so no help there. When I am at home I have good 3G coverage, but there I connect via WLAN or use my computer, same when I am at work. While I am moving, I might do some limited surfing/email checking which is more than fine on EDGE and rather do I have decent standby time than a questionable higher bandwidth. And more often than not there will not be a 3G network available. Then the phone will constantly search for it and eating up the battery.

You also have to factor in that while you might get higher download speed for bulk download, Web-surfing and interactive stuff will not really be faster. Here the constrain is largely round-trip time for packets on the network. And this is just as bad with 3G than it is with EDGE.

 

[bobbleheadbob]

EDGE is pretty slow. I'm getting the new one as soon as it's available.

 

[Diggity-Dan]

That's it! I'm moving to Germany!

We still don't have a ridiculously priced iPhone in Canada! Nevermind deals on them!

July 1st 3G iPhone?

Well, July 1st is Canada Day. Maybe Apple will give Canada a nice 3G birthday present. *fingers crossed*

 

[BuW1Ll]

iPhone not selling: Logical

Why is the iPhone not selling here:
1) Telekom, they suck.
2) Telekom, they switched off roaming completely so you cannot use an iPhone outside the country where your contract is running. Cool feature when you work in Germany and live in Holland.
3) Telekom, making the contracts 2x as expensive as in the US.
4) Telekom for hiding their iPhones so good that you cannot buy one. (The 16GB is nowhere)

The iPhone is cool, and makes other phones look ridiculous. But why on earth did Steve/Apple not played their position better and forced the provider to make a europe-wide contract for roughly the same price as the US contracts. And why did they choose the lousiest idiots on earth to serve the iPhone. Yuk.

BTW there probably is a 3G iPhone coming in june (with 32GB as well, i guess) and what is sure is that it will offer direct Exchange Server push eMail which is the only thing missing. That is.... except for the roaming.

 

[Thomas S]

I hate T-Mobile. Not only did they send me 2 phones and refused to take one back within the legal timeframe, but now they suddenly drop prices by €200. These are expensive contracts they pushed on customers, almost a rip off, all with the blessing of Apple.

This company is becoming really evil.

No one forced contracts onto you, and no one made you any promises about the future price of the phone. Quit complaining.

 

[sjo]

The iPhone is cool, and makes other phones look ridiculous. But why on earth did Steve/Apple not played their position better and forced the provider to make a europe-wide contract for roughly the same price as the US contracts. And why did they choose the lousiest idiots on earth to serve the iPhone. Yuk.

because last summer when apple was negotiating with european operators iphones were selling like hotcakes in the us and everybody was excited and the operators were eager to have the iphone in their selection and gave in on every demand apple saw fit to throw at them, including percentage on revenues.

so apple gave the contract to the operator who gave in on most demands.

now surprisingly, the operators had to price their service accordingly expensive, to make "a business case". resulting in ridiculous prices on plans. which, surprisingly again, killed the demand.

that's called "winners curse". which should leave the seller happy. except that it's about on going relationship, not a single transaction. so everybody loses. congrats.

 

[mikey.f]

I'm hoping all the European carriers will start doing this, too ... Too much to ask?

 

[0098386]

Tell you what, I have 3G permanently disabled on my Nokia. It eats up battery like nothing!

First, 3G coverage is usually not that great (outside of major cities), so no help there. When I am at home I have good 3G coverage, but there I connect via WLAN or use my computer, same when I am at work. While I am moving, I might do some limited surfing/email checking which is more than fine on EDGE and rather do I have decent standby time than a questionable higher bandwidth. And more often than not there will not be a 3G network available. Then the phone will constantly search for it and eating up the battery.

You also have to factor in that while you might get higher download speed for bulk download, Web-surfing and interactive stuff will not really be faster. Here the constrain is largely round-trip time for packets on the network. And this is just as bad with 3G than it is with EDGE.

I live in rural England miles from anywhere but theres a full 3G signal. Don't tell me we have something better over everyone else in Europe? For once?!

Plus wasn't there a news story some time ago saying 3G chips consume around the same power as Edge chips now? I believe Apple when they say they value battery life so I can't imagine them even thinking about 3G if its significantly worse than Edge is now.
They can also save power using OLED displays, higher capacity batteries etc to counter balance a beefy 3G chip. All speculation though - even 3G.

 

[MacTheSpoon]

To me, this news means Germany can expect iPhone 2.0 on July 1.

 

[morespce54]

Wow. That was unexpected...

 

[macerroneous]

iPhone price INCREASE

In an effort to stem the tide of cheap, unlocked iPhones, Apple and ATT will jointly announce a $200 price increase effective immediately. This price hike (to $599 and $699) will be offset by a $200 rebate coupon good on new 2 year subscriptions to iPhone service plans only through ATT, and will go into effect immediately. Said Mr. Jobs, "We've had to take this measure to protect our contractual arrangements with our current and future partners. Similar rebate programs will be rolled out accross the globe. The good news is that prices are not being raised for our law-abiding customers who continue to use our cellular provider partners, but those pirating Nigerian exporters are going to feel the pinch!" The rebate coupons will be found inside iPhone packages, which will resume shipment and be available April 15, when the new pricing will go into effect in the US.

--not a press release yet--

 

[cameronjpu]

Really, the US is giving $600 to everyone?

Surely it's better to lower taxes, thereby not taking the $600 off people in the first place, rather than go through the administrative cost of sending it back to them.

I wonder what the economists think... I'd have thought flooding the market with money like that would drive inflation through the roof.

$600 per person isn't exactly flooding the market, that's why that's not an issue. Plus, $600 is only for tax paying adults, kids are worth $300 to their parents and those who make over like $120,000 get nothing.

And yeah, it would be great if they just never took it from us in the first place, but at the time they took it, they didn't know the economy was going to hit the skids in a perfect storm of credit drying up and risk aversion.

 

[ooberpongo]

I am from Germany, and the reason why the sell-trough of the iPhone sucks here, is plain simple: The iPhone service plans plain suck here in Germany, and are absolutely uncompetetive in contrast to service plans of other carriers here.

The basic problem is, that there are too few "free minutes" and too few SMS/Text to begin with. Basically nobody would want to sign up for that... T-Mobile in Germany basically sucks.

For example,the cheapest service plan up to now:

For 49,- EURs a month you get 100 Minutes and 40 SMS - sorry, but thats completely pathetic. Compare it with AT&T service plan: For $59 you get 450 Minutes and 200 SMS/Textmessages. I mean, come on. Or just compare the service plan with the ones from O2 in England..
iPhone sucks in Germany. That's why I bought an unlocked one in France (what a hassle it was.. but nonetheless I got one) and use BASE with it.

Oh and the best thing: The same T-mobile is offering better service plans in Austria. Now try to get behind that logic.

Well you have to add all the local and federal taxes to the AT&T Plans, which brings the price from $59 more to $89. Then again those minutes count also for INCOMING traffic and are billed by the full minute.

Using an iphone with BASE is just completly nuts. BASE does not have an EDGE Network so data transfer Speed will be GPRS of around 40kbps instead of 200gbps.

 

[swagi]

Bad...really bad...

To me this means, that a lousy contract was expanded with an even more lousy offer. You read the terms?

I mean, 500 MB of data (later reduced to ridiculous 100 MB) and no HotSpots?

I mean, honestly...

*nasty laugh*

...they better get their act together in iPhone 2.0! No one in their sane mind will buy an inferior phone (with an albeit gorgeous UI) with an expensive contract.

 

[frank781]

32 Gbits chips are being shipped

The iPod Touch has room for it.

It's true that the iPod Touch has room, but I read some weeks back that Samsung is already sampling 32 GBit chips from their 40nm process which would make a 32GB iPhone more realistic.

This offer from TMobile is probably both a clearance sale to reduce the stock of 8Gb iPhones as well as spur some sales there. It's liel that within the Terms and COnditions of teh contract between and the carriers, that there's a clause exception to Apple's rule to not subsidize the phone.

This sale may also help Apple com to the realization that subsidizing the iPhone might be more lucrative than maintaining a "premium" on their products.

 

[frank781]

Negative for a Sale!?

I voted this a negative. They need to decrease the price of their contracts, not give a one-time price cut on the phones.

While I agree that Contract prices are too expensive, why mark a negative on a sale for a phone that doesn't get sbusidized anywhere else in the world.

Mark it negative if you would like the offer to come the US as well

 

[manilikesmac]

This price change by T-Mobile will be followed by other carriers. It is because the 16GB model with EDGE will stick around after the new models are announced. It's price will most likely drop to $299, while the 3G models will fill the $399 & $499 slots. I would expect to see a jump in iPod Touch capacity around that time as well.

Well, I highly doubt this because 2.5 is outdated now, well dont quote me on that:]
and the price will be still at 399 and 499 but i think it will be a little differant design and the 399 version will have 16gbs and the 499 will be at 32 gbs.