Slashdot Mirror

It appears that O2 (in the UK) is going to offer the iPhone on a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) deal. This is a non-contract way of running a phone over here. You buy top-up cards with airtime (say £10 or £20) when you run out.

If the premium on the phone isn't huge (you usually pay more for PAYG as it's not a guaranteed income to the operator), it could be a good way of getting a non-contract iPhone to jail-break. If it can be jail broken (I give it 10 hours, any advances).

More info : http://www.o2.co.uk/iphone/paygo

UK pricing: http://www.o2.co.uk/iphone

*very* competative.

This is an example, it's a mobile device designed entirely by a network operator.

Thanks for visiting the O2 Online Shop

Unfortunately, we are unable to sell to countries outside the UK.

Actually, what happens is carriers "certify" phones to work on their network. YOu may wonder why you can buy Model X of a phone, and find that it doesn't have features while other Model X's do. Some of these features include things like call timers (carriers disable them since they like to charge from the moment you hit Send, rather than the moment the call is actually connected), byte timers (carriers can charge for every byte, including OTA packet headers and such), button color (the Send and End keys *MUST* be of a certain shade of green and red...), and so on.

I think I should point out again that in the rest of the world, carriers do not do this kind of stupid stuff.

This is an example, it's a mobile device designed entirely by a network operator. None of this slap-windows-mobile-on-it rubbish, this is a BREW based handset (running the MSM6280). All the features and functionality have been explicity detailed, designed and managed by O2 .. and guess what?

• It has a fully functioning bluetooth stack so you can send and received any content you like
• It even supports A2DP and AVRCP.
• You can set any supported music file as a ringtone, you can bluetooth it off the device directly from the music player if you want
• You can send and receive vcard and vcalendar files
• You can access the device in mass storage mode and pull off your pictures or video, or put some on, or set them as a wallpaper
• You can synchronise your contacts and calendar using the supplied software with Microsoft Outlook
• It supports SyncML 1.1.2
• It has a fully working Java runtime environment. You can download and install unsigned Java applications if you want.
• It has a full XHTML browser which you can use to access the web.

Only in the USA do carriers have such a massive control over their phones. This is a prime example of a device which could have been massively crippled from birth - but the operator deliberately chose not to.

Whatever...

The O2 home page says it all:

http://www.o2.co.uk/

It no longer features an iPhone on half a page. There is a Sony there instead. Nuff said.

It has more than a touchscreen in difference.

A touch screen (the only thing the iPhone has that others don't) certainly isn't worth £269.

It has more than a touchscreen in difference.

It has more than a touchscreen in difference.

A touch screen (the only thing the iPhone has that others don't) certainly isn't worth £269.

It has more than a touchscreen in difference.

Free on £30 a month tariff, that's £5 less than the IPhone tariff.

I'm waiting to see if O2 include a "long weekend" offer- that would make the number of minutes more attractive

http://www.o2.co.uk/mobilestariffs/tariffs/o2longweekends

Check the exchange rates, the pound is killing the dollar. Compare AT&T plans with O2 plans. AT&T costs $80 for 900 minutes and 200 sms, but with unlimited nights/weekends and mobile to mobile AT&T customers. O2 costs 55 pounds for 1200 minutes and 500 sms. For one thing, if you use 500 SMS, you can increase the AT&T plan by $30, equalizing the plans if you convert currency. The problem is you can't convert currency as the O2 plan is available in the UK and the AT&T plan is avialable in the US. Everything costs more in the UK. Get a pint of beer in a pub and you'll probably spend 3 pounds. Get a pint of beer in the US and you'll probably spend $3. Buy a coffee at Starbucks in the UK and you'll spend 4 pounds. Buy one in the US and you'll spend $4. I think the O2 plan is actually quite a deal...

Their own website: http://www.o2.co.uk/ doesn't have any subscript-2s except in images.

If you compare the tariffs for O2 service (12 month contract) before the iPhone, you could get 200 min and 400 texts for 30 pounds/month http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs/12_months or 500 min/100 texts on an 18-month contract. For 5 pounds more, you get unlimited data access with the iPhone. While there may be cheaper ways to get cell phone service in the UK, if you want O2, the rates for the iPhone are not much higher than pre-iPhone.

Looking at O2's website, we see this breakdown in plans: 200min plus 400 text: 25pounds 750min plus 100 text: 35pounds 1350min plus 100 text: 50pounds http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs/18_months/Talker http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs THESE ARE ONLINE-ONLY SPECIALS. One has to assume that the iPhone will cost 10pounds more per month than the normal plans (since they cost an extra $20 more per month over here). So, the iPhone charges 10pounds more at the 200min level (but you loose half the texts), 10 pounds more at the 750 minute level (loosing 150 minutes, but gaining 400 texts), and 5pounds more at the 1350 minute level (again loosing 150 minutes and gaining 400 texts). They MIGHT be a worse deal than the AT&T plans over here, but not by much. They're pretty much standard O2 rates plus 10 pounds. Since the AT&T plans are the standard AT&T plans plus $20, that's pretty equivalent. NOTE: In both cases, the premium you're paying for an iPhone plan is getting you unlimited data and so if you're already paying for that, you might not consider it an increase in fee at all.

Looking at O2's website, we see this breakdown in plans: 200min plus 400 text: 25pounds 750min plus 100 text: 35pounds 1350min plus 100 text: 50pounds http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs/18_months/Talker http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs THESE ARE ONLINE-ONLY SPECIALS. One has to assume that the iPhone will cost 10pounds more per month than the normal plans (since they cost an extra $20 more per month over here). So, the iPhone charges 10pounds more at the 200min level (but you loose half the texts), 10 pounds more at the 750 minute level (loosing 150 minutes, but gaining 400 texts), and 5pounds more at the 1350 minute level (again loosing 150 minutes and gaining 400 texts). They MIGHT be a worse deal than the AT&T plans over here, but not by much. They're pretty much standard O2 rates plus 10 pounds. Since the AT&T plans are the standard AT&T plans plus $20, that's pretty equivalent. NOTE: In both cases, the premium you're paying for an iPhone plan is getting you unlimited data and so if you're already paying for that, you might not consider it an increase in fee at all.

I'm not worldly nor different, I just live in the UK where the general text tariff is at or over 10p a time.

as an example, my current price list:
http://www.o2.co.uk/mobilestariffs/tariffs/paygo/talkalot

Your in the UK? Pop into your local O2 store and look at this:

https://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/specification/O2/Xda_O rbit_-_Sat_Nav

Its probably going to be much cheaper than the iPhone, its small it looks damm good (seriously the photo doesn't do it justice) The UI is WM5 which is 1 hand operable and while websites don't always render properly everything does render, for me the on screen keyboard is a pain (tis why I have a XDA Mini S (HTC Wizard)) but it does have GPS and comes with UK sat nav maps, WiFi, Windows Media Player 10 on it is very easy to use (the on screen buttons are big enough to be hit with your thumb and 90% can be done through the physical buttons) you can sync it a few ways although I prefer to use WMP11 for my own Wizard. At this point I think WMP11 is substanially better than Itunes But then again I've hated Itunes since Version 4. When you couple it with one of these:

http://www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=127830

Your phone can suddenly store 600 tracks (I currently have 593 with 84MB to spare with them encoded to 128Kbps) oh did I mention its 3G and has a radio built into it? Sure thats not the iPhones 4GB or 8GB but its still pretty good. If you hate that what about:

http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/index.cfm?go=paymonthly .productdetails&pid=445
https://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Nokia/N95
Anouther extremely nice phone, while not that cheap its a great phone and worth looking into, if you really can't find anything better you haven't been looking, I mean if high memory is what your after Nokia had relased the N90 which was designed to be a music player with a 8GB memory the carriers dropped it because no one bought it but I'm sure its on ebay.

Your in the UK? Pop into your local O2 store and look at this:

https://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/specification/O2/Xda_O rbit_-_Sat_Nav

Its probably going to be much cheaper than the iPhone, its small it looks damm good (seriously the photo doesn't do it justice) The UI is WM5 which is 1 hand operable and while websites don't always render properly everything does render, for me the on screen keyboard is a pain (tis why I have a XDA Mini S (HTC Wizard)) but it does have GPS and comes with UK sat nav maps, WiFi, Windows Media Player 10 on it is very easy to use (the on screen buttons are big enough to be hit with your thumb and 90% can be done through the physical buttons) you can sync it a few ways although I prefer to use WMP11 for my own Wizard. At this point I think WMP11 is substanially better than Itunes But then again I've hated Itunes since Version 4. When you couple it with one of these:

http://www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=127830

Your phone can suddenly store 600 tracks (I currently have 593 with 84MB to spare with them encoded to 128Kbps) oh did I mention its 3G and has a radio built into it? Sure thats not the iPhones 4GB or 8GB but its still pretty good. If you hate that what about:

http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/index.cfm?go=paymonthly .productdetails&pid=445
https://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Nokia/N95
Anouther extremely nice phone, while not that cheap its a great phone and worth looking into, if you really can't find anything better you haven't been looking, I mean if high memory is what your after Nokia had relased the N90 which was designed to be a music player with a 8GB memory the carriers dropped it because no one bought it but I'm sure its on ebay.

https://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/O2/Xda_Trion

O2 do a whole range of Xda's I have this ones predessor (XDA Mini S), lets go through the list.

Connects with outloot perfectly

Does do group calender (did this accidently once with the root university calender, that was a mistake)

Connects through the universitys VPN to the wireless network (which is mixed b/g)

Runs Pocket Explorer (not perfect yet I'll admit but pretty good)

Runs the Office Mobile group which is much better than quick office found on other phones

Adobe Photoshop installs on it, runs happily

Can send and recieve Pop/IMAP/etc... email

Does MMS and SMS

Came with MSN mesenger, I've installed Skype

Has a application called notes (very handy in making drinks lists)

Battery will last five days from standard use about 12 hours of music/WLAN will empty the battery, You don't lose any data if the battery does die

Soft and hard resets (choose to save battery life or not)

Your not tied into any network, as I've tried a Orange and vodaphone sim card and both work. This is the kicker on my £35 a month contract it was free, not £250 like the Iphone. Oh did I mention the Nokia N95 (excusing the VPN) matches all those features (plus GPS.)

Iphone is far behind the WM5 devices out there, they will only sell due to Apple 'cool' factor, before you say about 'complete solutions' my XDA Mini S has never crashed, nor has it slowed down since I got it (Decemeber) I can use it without a stylus with one hand and send text messages as well as make calls just with my thumb, the Nokia N95 has been out for less time but so far I know two non techie people who have it and haven't had a single issue.

While you can't get a RAZR in the UK there is the V3i (basically the same thing) Just looking around you can get it for free on a £20 a month contract ( https://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Motorola/V3xx%20(i-mod e) )

As you can see the O2 XDA Mini S is free on a 12 month £35 a month contract thats a PDA using WM5 and a phone I love, even their brand new XDA Orbit is free on a £35 a month 12 month contract. Sadly with O2 there are big advantages to tying yourself into a 18month contract. Vodaphone and Orange offer similar deals however Oranges recent move to fixed inflexable service plans has meant that they are losing customers in spades. Of course if your a carrier promoting 3G like 3 then your price plans are insanely good I was offered 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and unlimited data for £22.5 a month and the phone for free (sadley it was a older larger and ugly PDA.

This is probably the case - most mobile java apps that connect to the interweb require these proxy settings to be set.

O2 even have a page where they can send the settings to your phone:

http://www.o2.co.uk/services/ota4/input2

So, if I get this right, "dropped calls" is a meaasurement of how often a caller wandered outside of the coverage area, or radio cold spot.

So providers are trying to offset the capital costs of providing rurals with cell phones by gouging inner city users.

As the OP said, when hearing about US cell phone plans, us in the E.U. are flabbergasted at the things we hear. All except for data plans - I've heard stories of people using their phones to listen to internet radio on a US cross country trip.

That would cost serious money here : $2+ a Mb on basic plans with $150 pcm for 1Gb being the cheapest I have found (O2)
http://www.o2.co.uk/business/corporate/businesstar iffs/datatariffs/

I didn't originally buy a phone for this type of use, but it's pretty capable. I am on a pay-as-you-go sim with virgin mobile, and they charge 0.5 pence per KB. At first, I didn't worry about that, as I had no real idea how much simple e-mail usage was going to work out costing me. Anyway, one day, I was checking the mail, and the AVG popped up saying it was out of date. Ok, so download it then - except it was a 2.5 MB dload ! I realised after a few seconds what I had just agreed to, and hit the cancel button. Too late, after about 20% of the download, I had run out of credit. I know for a fact that I had £8.00 credit when I logged on for the email ( I was keeping tabs on expected costs/usage ), so that was £8.00 for around 500 KB and some email. *!?# that !

So I am in the market for a better (cheaper) option. It seems that I will have to go contract to get 3G anyway, but I am quite happy with GPRS really. The best prices I have come across (per MB) are from British Telecom (well ok , O2 ) with their unlimited plan running at around £75 (+tax) per month. (Unlimited actually means 1GB BTW) Per meg that's not too bad. They have another plan at 512 MB / month which costs £40 (+tax) which is also not too bad (per MB).
However, trying to find information on how to actually get this service is virtually impossible. For instance, I don't really need a new phone, just a sim card. I don't actually want voice services either, virgins fine for that. I can't use O2s datacard product because I dropped the laptop (while pissed) and broke the pcmcia socket off the mboard - the wifi card was in there at the time !

So, has anybody got any solid info on how to go about getting set up ?

PS. I start a new job in just over a week, and I'm going to need this stuff sorted, or go without /. every morning :<

*shrug*

We're keeping an old conversation alive ;-)

I'd suggest looking at prices in other countries. My british cousin spend about 12 pence per text message; thats ~20 cents. Incoming calls are free, but her average rate for outgoing is about 10 pence. That's about 18 cents per minute.

Plus she pays an 6 pound monthly fee, which i feel is rather alot.

T-mobile UK rates: http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/Dispatcher?menuid=phones _opp
O2 UK rates: http://www.o2.co.uk/personal/choosetariff/0,,111,0 0.html

Keep in mind 1 pound = ~1.8 dollars

These prices are pretty representative of Europe; I just got back from UK, France, Holland.

I'm too lazy to find Japanese or S. Korean prices, but I've heard they are similar. I know first hand that cell phones in Africa and the Mid East (GSM, of course) are _vastly_ more expensive than here. I've been in Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and Dubai, and its _expensive_.

Our service is shitter. But we pay less for it ;-)

(one of the cheapest) data price here (uk) is :

£8 / $4.52 per month for up to to 5mb (£0.40p / $0.22 per MB)
then £1 / $0.5645 per MB

sliding to

£40 / $22.58 per month for up to 512Mb (£0.77 / $0.43 per MB)
then £0.75 / $0.42 per MB

£75 /$ 42.62 per month for up 1024Mb expected usage (£0.07 / $0.04 per MB)
then O2 reserves the right to apply extra charges or to withdraw the Data Max 1024 service from any individual at any time in the case of suspected overuse or abuse of the service. Any charges introduced shall be binding and final between You and O2 and shall not be the subject of mediation or arbitration.

http://www.o2.co.uk/business/tariffs/datatariffs/0 ,,203,00.html

Even funnier and more lame is their explanation of why they won't let you see the site in Firefox

Even funnier and more lame is their explanation of why they won't let you see the site in Firefox

Even funnier and more lame is their explanation of why they won't let you see the site in Firefox

I have been to the UK, and must concur: BT is the pits! They are comparable to Australia's Telstra in many ways. One thing that BT has done right, though, is the O2 mobile company. Brilliant! http://o2.co.uk/

The phone is a modified XDA. The latest model from them is O2. They are powered by Microsoft Pocket PC and supports Wifi cards. Xda was first released on July 13th, 2002.

100 megabytes and if you exceed that, it's 2 euros/megabyte. So, what's 100 mb/month good for? Definitely not for using graphical WWW on Opera's mobile version.

You think that's bad?

I pay GBP25/mo on O2's online offpeak 500 tariff.

I get ... 0.5MB of GPRS included! GBP2.35 / MB if I go over that.

How do they expect such technologies to seriously take off at such extortionate prices? I could probably download my email once with that amount of inclusive transfer..

100% of cellphones don't run Windows

What about the Orange SPV?

Or the O2 XDA?

At 5p a time, spamming is not economic

Also the O2 XDA, sold in the US by T-Mobile. It's not a Smartphone, but it is WinCE based.

A friend in the UK has one, and swears by it; it'll probably be my next phone, unless MS Smartphones hit the US market before I'm ready to switch.

Here, in the UK at least and probably Europe wide, we send sms over both the SS7 network and the internet.

Check out this page and this page for free text messaging.

100 free per month, and U GT 2 USE A QBOARD 2 INPUT LTTRS! THNK FCK!

Ok, that's enough advertising.

Incidentally, I've only experienced a message not being delivered once, on new years eve 1999. But then again, I avoid using my mobile for voice calls let alone nasty txt mssgs!

The XDA from O2 - a combination Pocket PC PDA and GSM/GPRS phone manufactured by the Taiwanese company HTC and also offered by various other telcos around the world - similarly fails, in my view, to deliver on its promise.

It's neither a good enough phone, nor a good enough PDA. The things it's best for in my view, are reading eBooks (MS Reader is very impressive), and MP3 playing, assuming you have a large enough SD card. But there are cheaper and better solutions for each of those things.

Personally, I'd far rather have a two-box solution comprising a good, triband, GPRS-enabled cellphone with onboard Bluetooth such as the Nokia 6310i or Sony-Ericsson T68i, together with a Bluetooth enabled PDA like the Palm Tungsten T. That way you get a great phone and a great PDA that actually work together, as opposed to something that can't make up its mind what it is and doesn't do anything really well.

Are you sure it is a spammer and not just someone you know who doesnt realise that 'anonymous SMS flirting' is a waste of money? I know O2 have one (they seem to call it 'TXT flirt'). I suppose you could call it spam because you recieve it from a service that you have not asked to be a part of, but that would be like calling the 'Email this story to a friend' links on news sites spam too.

I've had the Sony Ericsson T68i (pictured in there somewhere) for a couple of weeks, and it's a great little number. Apart from being very small and light, and having infrared and Bluetooth, it's got a tiny clip-on digital camera, which takes relatively good quality pix - you can then email them from the phone or send them as a MMS message in about 5 seconds. Older phones that can't take the JPG get a message directing them to a website, with logon and password, to view the photo. It's fun for a while, and surprisingly useful (while furniture shopping last week I could mail my wife a photo of the proposed purchase for approval).

Speaking of which, took delivery of a new convergence device, the XDA, about to come on the market in the UK (and Germany to follow), from British phone company O2. Looks great ( see it here) and works very smoothly, a GPRS phone combined with a Pocket PC... that's the downside, Microsoft. Otherwise it does all the things you'd want something like this to do: always on email, web surfing, MP3 player, phone, the whole caboodle.