O2 Offered iPhone Contract in UK

davidmcg writes "There has been speculation on who will provide the service for iPhone in the UK. Now, the answer has been provided. It seems that O2 has been offered the contract to provide telephony services in the UK for the iPhone. It seems that the iPhone should be available in the UK in time for Christmas. O2 have refused to confirm or deny these reports, so is it yet another unconfirmed iPhone rumor or is it fact? We can only wait to find out."

Comments

Apple section?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I finally decided to filter news from the Apple section to avoid "iPhone" news. You come and put it in the "hardware" section? C'mon!

What about smaller countries

[suv4x4]

I live in Eastern Europe and the presence of Apple here is basically nill.

There isn't a single Apple store here. There are 3rd party distributors which sell Apple hardware/software and that's about it. With the kind of deals iPhone is after (tightly integrating the iPhone functionality with a specific provider), I see a big chunk of the world simply denied access to the iPhone (with the exception of illegally imported and hacked units I guess..)

Re:What about smaller countries

[droopycom]

A big chunk of the world is denied basic such as:

- peace
- clean water
- clean air
- housing
- electricity

Yes, I do also dream about the slick iPhone, but right now this dream is being tainted by mixed reviews anyway.
And my $499 are better spent buying a new stove anyway...

Being "denied" iPhone is kind of like being "denied" twinkies, oreos or root beer...

Its just a freaking gadget. Your life wont change.

Re:What about smaller countries

[CastrTroy]

I live in Canada and the Apple presence is kind of non-existent. Not counting the iPod, it's pretty hard to find any apple products here in Canada. You can order online, but in terms of physical presence, there is none. There used to be one shop I knew of that sold a lot of Apple stuff (notebooks, monitors, software) but they closed down recently.

Re:What about smaller countries

[suv4x4]

A big chunk of the world is denied basic such as:

- peace
- clean water
- clean air
- housing
- electricity

What a cheap spin: if I want iPhone then it must be I don't sympathize with the dying african children! What a monster I am!

Loser.

Re:What about smaller countries

[Traa]

A big chunk of the world is denied basic such as:

- peace
- clean water
- clean air
- housing
- electricity


Hey, you live in California too??

- peace: The best reason for War the US has to offer.
- clean water: I sure as hell don't drink it from the tab, and some people here can't even afford to buy drinking water (more expensive then gas)
- clean air: Ever been to LA?
- housing: renting 2 bedroom apt at $2000/month till I can get my $750K 4 bedroom house (no yard).
- electricity: 2 more weeks of heat and no water and we will loose that as well. Rolling blackouts where discussed on the radio again today.

But f&^%ck all that...I gots an iPhone baby! :-P

Re:What about smaller countries

[BungaDunga]

-California is not a warzone.
-You _have_ a tap. Care to walk miles for water every day?
-Beijing "air pollution capital of the world"
-A valid point
-I heard a report on the BBC today talking about this informal study they're doing on quality of life in Baghdad. All three of the families they are tracking got about an hour a day of electricity this week, and constant electricity supply is in the dim future.

Re:What about smaller countries

[feed_me_cereal]

...so, what you're basically saying is, there are places that exist which are *worse* than california (like baghdad or beijing). Given that level of endorsement, I hope you don't blame me if I'm not packing my suitcase for a trip to LA anytime soon :)

Re:What about smaller countries

[Andrzej Sawicki]

I think you misspelled "insensitive clod".

Re:What about smaller countries

[elrous0]

American "beer" is a facade

It's all piss. It's just a question of how thick you like that piss.

Announcing things before Steve Jobs does....

[emjoi_gently]

If O2 does have the contract, you know they will keep quiet about it until they are given permission to talk.

Re:Which is it?

[macmaniac]

Apparently the poster didn't catch that O2 has denied the reports that it has signed a contract with Apple.

Reuters Article

3G for Europe?

[aluminumcube]

Just an uninformed theory, but I think Apple would need to go 3G with the iPhone if they want to really succeed in the Euro market. Most Americans have never had the exposure to get addicted to a fast net connection on a cell phone, so going with EDGE is grumble-worthy but not a deal breaker for the US mass market. Europeans, on the other hand, are 3G fanatics from what I understand.

Re:3G for Europe?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think 3G is a big deal in the consumer market - at least not here in the UK. It may be different for business users, but for personal cellphones only T-Mobile has a sensible mobile data plan; the others are living in a different world. Orange - to whom I am a bonded villein for another 8 months, 3 weeks and 4 1/2 days - recently wrote to ask me if I wanted to pay £8 a month (that's $240 for you Americans) for a data plan capped at 30Mb. Each month. Frankly, I don't even look now at a phone's data performance. It's just not a factor right now.

And in case you now think I'm some sort of Luddite, I bought one of those credit card-sized LCD personal organiser databanks from the Innovations Catalogue when I was 14.

Re:3G for Europe?

[bogjobber]

If someone is willing to fork out $500 on a phone, they are much more likely to also want top of the line features (ie 3G). Even Apple can't compete *solely* on their brand name. They actually do have to be competitive on the features they offer, especially in the higher end of the market.

Re:3G for Europe?

[l-ascorbic]

humour (that's humor for you Americans)

Re:3G for Europe?

[arivanov]

Wrong product actually. You should navigate their website before talking rubbish. Look for the 3G broadband modem or the datacard.

Vodafone currently has the most sensible dedicated data plans at:

- 90 quid for unlimited + up to 250MB EU roaming (look at the T-Mob roaming tariff and you will choke on your breakfast).
- under 50 for unlimited UK use + 8 pounds per up to 50MB day EU roaming in countries with Voda franchises
- 29 for 250MB UK use + 8 pounds per up to 50MB day EU roaming (countries with franchises).

Unfortunately, their sales and customer service staff are a bunch of cretinous moronoids which do not even know that the tariffs exist. I have a couple of mail threads in my mailbox about them and they make a reading close to the classic "Dear Cretins" letter to NTL.

Voda unfortunately has a host of known Data problems as well. It has no EDGE for purely political reasons. Some wanker in their management said once upon a time that Edge is useless and they would not dilute the value of their 3G license by buying into a competitive technology so they now tow the party line regardless of the fact that their Edgeless GPRS network is totally out of capacity. The CretinBerry has eaten it all. The packet loss on GPRS on voda on a morning UK east coast mainline commuter train is currently 95%+ downlink. So if the iPhone in Europe is not a 3G device, the choice of O2 is obvious. It has considerably more GPRS capacity to go around and it has Edge in all places where it matters.

So nothing new here. If the iPhone is a 2G device the choice is correct, though fairly shortsighted. The device will be useless where it most matters - on roaming. For that Apple should have chosen Voda. Europe is not US. Here everyone who has the money to buy an iPhone goes on at least 4 holidays abroad per year if not more and expects the gadget to work there as well. Without a 700£ data bill.

Why do they need exclusive contracts?

[jaaron]

Why can't Apple just sell an unlocked phone and really help change the market? Is it the visual voicemail app that needs operator support? Is Apple going to negotiate contracts in every country? What a mess.

Re:Why do they need exclusive contracts?

[tsa]

I agree. Apple tries to bring the retardedness of the American mobile phone market to Europe. I don't think people here are so keen on switching provider for the iPhone as they are in America, simple because they are not used to switching providers for a new phone. But, I could be wrong. In any case not being able to buy it without the subscription is the ultimate show-stopper for me. In the long run buying without a subscription is usually cheaper.

Re:Why do they need exclusive contracts?

[DavidD_CA]

I would have to imagine there are two reasons.

Like you said, the visual email thing requires a good deal of vendor support. And I imagine a vendor is only going to put forth the effort required if they see a substantial return on that investment.

Likewise, there's a very good possibility that AT&T has paid Apple for exclusive rights to the launch (a two year term). That contract, which could be worth a lot of money, is probably worth more to Apple than any kind of "good will" that might change the market or the sales they missed because of it.

All that being said, in two years they will likely make it "open" and you'll be able to get your iPhone from any vendor. We'll see though.

And this is a frontpage article?

[WIAKywbfatw]

From the summary:

It seems that the iPhone should be available in the UK in time for Christmas. O2 have refused to confirm or deny these reports, so is it yet another unconfirmed iPhone rumor or is it fact?

Well, how about you RTFA that you yourself linked to, buddy?

1. "Press reports said that O2 is set to sign an exclusive contract shortly and should have the new phones on sale in time for Christmas."

2. "However a spokesman for O2's owner, Spain's Telefonica, said that a deal had not been signed."

Translation: a deal is close, almost on the verge of being done but not yet completed. So, yes, for now, it's an unconfirmed rumour. When all parties have signed on the dotted line, then it will be fact.

Really, how can a story that questions itself make it as a frontpage article?

3G?

[p0tat03]

Given the limited nature of American 3G networks, the whole iPhone and EDGE thing can be (to some extent) explained away. But considering how widespread 3G is in Europe, I'd hope Apple has a 3G-ified version of iPhone ready for them. The lack of 3G in the phone, IMHO, is one of the more critical mistakes that Apple has made, especially in introducing such an obviously media-heavy device.

3G chips too power intensive

[hypermanng]

Jobs said he's not going to do 3G until they can get 3G chips that use less power. Who wants to bet Apple is arranging to have exactly that available by the fall?

Re:3G chips too power intensive

[iamdrscience]

Jobs said he's not going to do 3G until they can get 3G chips that use less power. Who wants to bet Apple is arranging to have exactly that available by the fall?

I'll take that bet. If chip companies could make lower power 3G chips, they would. It's not like Apple's the only company that wants 3G chips that consume less power, in fact, they're one of the smaller companies (in terms of the production volume of their phones) that wants chips like that.

3G chips need more power than EDGE chips, it's just a fact and although there may be advances so that they require less power than they do now, no amount of "arrangement" by Apple is going to speed that up.

Re:3G chips too power intensive

[iamdrscience]

My point is that the demand is already there for lower power 3G chips and the fact that Apple wants them now too doesn't change anything. Every phone manufacturer would kill for lower power 3G chips and every 3G chip manufacturer is already trying to deliver them. The incentive is already there -- if some company came out with a 3G chip that used significantly less power they know they would kill all their current competitors as well as increase the market for 3G phones because at present there are a lot of phones that don't include 3G chips specifically because of their power costs (once again, the iPhone is hardly unique in this regard).

Re:3G chips too power intensive

[prockcore]

Jobs said he's not going to do 3G until they can get 3G chips that use less power. Who wants to bet Apple is arranging to have exactly that available by the fall?

Well then Jobs should've looked at a non-GSM provider.. since EVDO uses less power than 1xRTT.

Actually, Jobs should've just taken the battery life hit on GSM anyway.. the fact that all incoming calls go straight to voicemail while Safari is running is ridiculous. This is also probably why iChat is unavailable.. you couldn't be on AIM and use the phone at the same time.

Re:3G chips too power intensive

[squiggleslash]

Jobs has also said that the iPhone isn't programmable (except Web2.0) because a programmable phone would, upon crashing, take down Cingular/AT&T's network.

Jobs isn't above lying occasionally. The power consumption of CDMA (including the W-CDMA needed for UMTS support) chipsets, while higher than the relatively power-efficient GSM, isn't so high that 3G phones aren't being made by every other manufacturer that have perfectly adequate battery lives. Indeed, proportionally, the additional overhead of introducing UMTS to the iPhone, the rest of whose electronics are probably quite hungry compared to an average flip phone, is probably quite small.

I don't know what the true reason for the iPhone's lack of 3G is. But, on the face of it, the power consumption argument is clearly false. This is Steve Jobs buying time. Perhaps it's patent licensing issues that are still in negotiation. Perhaps Apple can't find a chipset reliable enough. Perhaps they want to hold off until UMTS chipsets that support the 1700/2100MHz spectrum (just licensed in the US and not yet rolled out) are widely available.

Power consumption though? Absolute nonsense.

Re:Lock-in

[MightyYar]

Anti-trust? From Apple? They might, if they are lucky, control 1% of the cell phone market!

European FCC

[lastninja]

Since this is bound to raise questions about will it have 3G type. I thought I should ask a related question. I guess the EU have some sort of FCC equivalent that asserts that devices with radio comply to standards. When would apple have to provide them with an iPhone with a 3G chip, for it to make the before end of 2007 deadline. Are those tests public, i.e. would they have to tell us that they are conducting tests on the iPhone?

Re:European FCC

[Anonymous Coward]

If they use an already approved 3G modem module rather than a discrete chip, they may be able to skip that and go straight to operator approvals.

They dont want the market to change

[pablo_max]

Why would they? They want to share in the revenue from month to month..not just a one time hardware purchase. Think of it more like a pay-for-play model. Apple gets to make 50% off each iphone, then get a certain % of the monthly service fee that the iphones will bring the operators. Normally these phones are heavily subsidized by the operators in america, this is not true at all in EU which is why you can get an unlocked phone. This phone is not subsidized by US carriers, which is why they can afford to give apple a piece of the monthly on top of the cost of the phone. Win Win for apple.

Re:They dont want the market to change

[fdobbie]

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Phones are historically heavily subsidized in the UK, with a contract (and handset) churn rate of 12 months. The MNOs have been pushing hard to kick that out to 18 months, but it's nowhere near the state of affairs in the US where 24 months is standard.

Re:Seconding this.

[tsa]

You just voiced the opinion of the vast mayority of European mobile phone customers I think. Apple is showing their complete ignorance of the European mobile phone market here. They will learn, don't worry.

Speculation vs Fact

[Durzel]

The Times Online is reporting that O2 have already won the contract ("O2 has beaten its rivals to win the exclusive UK rights to offer Apple's iPhone"), BBC News is saying that it is "reported to have won the sought-after deal". So the BBC is speculating whereas The Times is claiming it to be fact. I don't know who to believe.

If you believe all the articles you read then apparently O2 have denying winning the contract, being quoted as saying "they're just stories without any truth to them". That sounds like a pretty negative statement for a company who is apprently just being hush-hush about being in such a privileged position.

O2 do not have very good 3G coverage in the UK, it seems almost a no-brainer that Vodafone would've won the contract since their infrastructure is superior. There's no EDGE in the UK, so the UK iPhone either has to be 3G, or work over GPRS... the latter doesn't bear thinking about (think Youtube vids downloaded at 3-4KBps).

The smart money is still on Vodafone to win the contract in my opinion, despite these reports, and the UK (maybe Euro) iPhone having 3G support.

Re:Speculation vs Fact

[clonmult]

Catch is that only T-Mobile has any decent data plans in the UK though.

Vodafone pricing is generally just to be laughed at, call charges, data, whatever, they're just way overpriced. O2 aren't that different.

And as for "no edge in the UK", check your facts first. Orange have definitely rolled out an EDGE network, my N73 drops back to that when I'm on ropy 3G coverage.

Re:I never said it was a flop.

[Imsdal]

GP said the phone was selling well in the US. You said people who buy it are shortsighted and stupid.

I don't think you are contradicting each other.

O2 & the XDA

[Stevecrox]

O2 were the first operator to release PPC/PDA phones in the UK (to my knowledge), in the two local stores, I have the employees know about the XDA's back to front. When I went looking for one they went through my wants and needs before narrowing down which XDA they would recommend. Places like Orange and TMobile don't make a deal about their PDA phones their usually mixed in with the more expensive phones, but O2 do. I'm curious why O2 would take on the iPhone, unlike orange their not losing customers in droves, 3 could do with it as they need market share. Unless the iPhone drops its price substantially I can see the people in the O2 shops recommending an XDA Orbit (thin, light) with a 2GB memory card over the iPhone.

Oh no, not O2!!!

[DrogMan]

I'm with O2, fortunately out of my mandatory lock-in period. I'm not interested in an iPhone, but as soon as I can get my grubby paws on a Nokia E90, I'm jumping ship - probably to T-Mobile. Why? O2's GPRS data charges are extortionate.

You get 100KB for free a month. Last month I had to use my phone for data and I managed to suck down 14441KB. They charged me £27.97 for the privilege. That sucks. ~30 quid for 15MB. I pay less than that for my broadband connection a month and that's capped at 40GB a month.

Mobile data in the UK is rubbish.

/DM

UK part of Europe

[ajs318]

The UK is still (only just .....) part of the EU, where regulations mandate handset portability across networks. Even if you buy an iPhone connected to O2, you will have to be able to transfer it to any other telco with whose networks it is physically compatible. That means at least Vodafone (who are also using the 900MHz band) and possibly Orange and T-Mobile, if the RF section also does 1800MHz.

I live in Sheffield

[Warbothong]

Somehow, I don't think I'll be camping outside my local Apple store anytime soon...