on o2 payg, topping up £10 a month gives you 300 free texts.
then, the £10 is used for calls, giving you 40 minutes of calls - but if your call is over 3 minutes, anything after 3 minutes - for the entire day - costs 5p instead of 25p
so the £30 option sucks!
But you then have to spend a minimum of £300 up front. Which a lot of people aren't prepared to do.
I dunno - I'd have though most people would go for the £35 even with the £30 there as the £30 is crap enough that effectively it isn't a viable choice for most people. Makes the £30 a bit redundant in my book, but there we go.
The point of the £30 is to make you think its not good enough and go for the £35 option. Kind of like the entry level MacBook still not having a DVD writer.
And it also picks up those who can actually make do with what the £30 plan offers, and O2 are making effectively free money as its costing them next to nothing to supply so few minutes and texts.
Its all psychological and it does work. If 99% of people go for £35 then O2 are laughing either way.