last100 » O2

iPhone UK exclusivity to end, the future’s Orange but is it any brighter?

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:50:12 +0000

Exclusive handset offerings are certainly good for carriers and are probably good for handset makers too as they help drive up the price during negotiations – presuming there is a demand for said device in the first place. But it’s hard to see how they are ever in the interest of consumers who end up paying more through higher tariffs via the subsidy merry-go-round.

That’s because exclusives create a monopoly by any other name. In the case of the iPhone, if you want Apple’s iconic device here in the UK, you have no real choice but to become a customer of O2. Thankfully, that’s set to change with rival carrier Orange announcing that they have partnered with Apple to officially offer the iPhone.

Logically, based on my reasoning above, this added competition — the newly formed duopoly – should lead to greater competition and therefore lower prices for consumers. However, where Apple is concerned, I wouldn’t count on it. My bet is that the iPhone tariffs and up-front pricing will remain fairly close to where they are today, for the time being at least, and that Orange’s offering will be similar to O2’s. Such is demand for the iPhone, Apple is unlikely to have had to reduce what it charges either carrier in concession to ending exclusivity.

Instead, Orange will have paid ‘whatever it takes’ to secure the device as a strategy to acquire and retain high end customers who are crying out for the iPhone.

O2 the same.

(I’m basing this, in part, on reports that T-Mobile UK have been unofficially offering Apple’s device to its most profitable customers as a last ditch attempt at stopping them from leaving.)

So what will UK consumers get from the end of O2’s exclusivity? Better 3G coverage might well be the answer. Or at least a genuine choice of 3G networks.

As a side note, I was a customer of Orange UK for my first ten years of mobile. I left the carrier a few years ago not because they were a little more expensive than their cheapest rival but because they didn’t offer the handset I wanted at the time (the Nokia E61). Ironically, I could be about to leave my current carrier — 3 UK — in favor of O2 as they have the exclusive on the Palm Pre.

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Palm Pre UK release date confirmed, prices on par with older iPhone 3G

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:43:51 +0000

We knew the carrier: Telfonica-owned O2. We knew the time frame: before Christmas. Now we have the actual date and pricing for the UK release of Palm’s Pre smartphone, the company’s comeback device.

Set to go on sale on the 16th of October, the Pre will be “free” to customers signing up to a £34.26 per month, 24 month contract, or for those willing to move to the higher tariff of £44.05 or more on an 18 month contract. Otherwise the device will have an additional up front cost of £96.89. All of the tariffs feature varying inclusive minutes and texts, along with ‘unlimited’ data and WiFi hotspot access through The Cloud and BT Openzone.

If the O2’s Pre offering sounds familiar that’s because it’s priced exactly the same as the original iPhone 3G, as apposed to the newer and more expensive iPhone 3GS. While the Pre has a beefier processor than the original 3G, it shares the same amount of non-expandable storage – 8GB – which presumably helped to dictate O2’s pricing. The early adopter and techie in me says that the Pre offers the better of the two deals, although neither is cheap. Just sayin’ :-)

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Palm Pre to launch on O2 in the UK, just don’t mention the competition

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:45:34 +0000

It’s now official: The Palm Pre will launch exclusively on Telefonica-owned O2 here in the UK.

When?

“In time for the holidays”, say Palm and O2, with no word yet on pricing. My guess is that we’re talking early October, enough time to ramp up for Christmas spending.

Either way, it’s a pretty long time to wait, especially since O2 will have been busy pimping its other flagship exclusive. Apple’s newly launched iPhone 3GS.

And then there’s the rest of the competition.

Handsets already on the market in the UK that will/are to varying degrees going head-to-head with the Pre and iPhone include Nokia’s N97 (see my review), which is already getting its own TV and other advertising blitz, Vodafone’s Android debut, the HTC Magic (reviewed here), and Samsung’s HD video capable touch screen monster, the i8910 HD.

But perhaps more significant are the growing number of handsets, announced or known to exist, that will debut closer to the Palm Pre’s UK release.

First out of the gate is HTC’s newest Android phone, the Hero, with its Palm Pre-esque custom User Interface. We also know of Samsung’s Android-powered I7500 (another O2 offering), Sony Ericsson’s Satio (previously known as Idou), another touch screen device but one with a headline grabbing 12 megapixel camera. There’s also the expected BlackBerry Storm 2, Sony Ericsson’s own Android debut, and likely another flagship from Nokia.

That’s one crowded smartphone market, and knowing the competitive nature of the mobile phone space here in the UK, most, if not all of these Palm Pre competitors will come highly subsidized (or made to look that way), with pricing closer to “free” with a 18-24 month contract.

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