It has been revealed that O2 has quietly scrapped the web cap that it had imposed on its “unlimited” iPhone data plan.
The iPhone which goes on sale on Friday November 9th in the UK was said to have “unlimited” data access when it was unleashed on September 18th. But further investigation revealed that the plan had a 200MB per month limit.
The mobile company says that average data usage on mobiles is just five megabits a month, its feedback showed that potential iPhone customers felt uncomfortable with having any limit.
‘Customers find ‘unlimited with limits’ confusing, plus most people don’t speak in megabits or understand what they equate to,” said O2 UK chief executive Matthew Key.
”So we’ve taken the decision to remove the fair usage cap so that ‘unlimited’ really does mean ‘unlimited’ – this is a market first.”
Matthew Key has also taken time to talk to the Telegraph about how O2 secured the deal with Apple to exclusively sell the iPhone in the UK.
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Graeme
3rd November 2007, 19.01 pm
It’s a shame that they don’t appear to have relaxed the 200MB restriction on the equivalent data package for non-Jesusphone customers. It’d be moderately difficult to consistently hit 200MB/month on an EDGE device like an iPhone, but on something more modern with HSDPA, you could hit it very easily.
Also, O2 still don’t have any idea how to run a mobile internet service. Their definitions of acceptable uses in the terms and conditions sound like they’ve been written by a 10-year old who’s used the Internet for three weeks:
“Permitted Uses of O2 Web Bolt On are uses of your SIM Card within a handheld mobile device for the purposes of Internet Browsing and email (excluding BlackBerry® email) only.”
“Any other use of the O2 Web Bolt On will not be a Permitted Use, including but not limited to:
Use of the O2 Web Bolt On with Data Cards or Modems;
Instant Messaging,
IP Telephony,
Point 2 Point file sharing and file transfer,
VoIP (e.g. Skype™),
Video and TV streaming,
Slingboxes; and
Use in conjunction with routers.”
Taken from http://shop.o2.co.uk/boltonTerms?boltonId=6021
Use in conjunction with routers? I think it’d be a little difficult to deliver packets without them.
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dave
3rd November 2007, 19.19 pm
This is great for the UK. In Germany, it’s even more confusing, because “unlimited” actually means 3 different limits depending on which plan you sign up for…
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Andy
3rd November 2007, 21.57 pm
How about increasing the crap 200 mins & 200 texts for £35 a month (it’s a joke).
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Alex Brooks
3rd November 2007, 22.58 pm
Andy,
That is a very sound point, the tariffs are horrible.
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