News
UPDATED: Mixed reception for iPhone 3G price plans
Stuart O'Brien Jul 4 2008, 2:30pm
Comments (2)
AT&T, Rogers and Telia divide consumer opinion over pricing for Apple's device.
AT&T has unveiled new price plans for iPhone 3G customers - and its $10 extra a month for that high-speed connection and $5 a month for an SMS allowance.
The US operator is to offer contracts starting at $69.99 and rising to $129 for unlimited anytime minutes. It's $5 a month more for 200 messages and $20 for unlimited messages.
Existing and new customers committing to a two-year contract will pay $199 for the 8GB version, bur existing customers not eligible for upgrade discounts will pay $399.
The same rules apply to the 16GB version, which will be available for $399 with discounts, or $499 without.
Oddly, AT&T also says it will offer contract-free versions at a high premium ($599 8GB, $699 16GB). These will still be tied to an AT&T SIM, but mean the user will not be tied to the two-year contract.
Meanwhile, iPhone fans in Canada and Sweden have been up in arms at what they see as extortionate tariffs set by Rogers Wireless and Telia Sonera.
The latter has hastily added an 'unlimited' data plan to its iPhone 3G offer, having originally started pricing at $50 for a measly 100 mins, 100 SMS and 100MB of data.
Yesterday it relented to consumer pressure and said that iPhone customers can now choose from any of its existing voice/SMS plans and tack on unlimited data for a further $34.
Rogers Wireless customers will no doubt be hoping their operator conducts a similar about face.
The Globe & Mail reports that for $75 a month Rogers provides 300 weekday voice minutes, 750 megabytes of data, 100 text messages but no unlimited data. On AT&T in the US iPhone customers can get 450 weekday voice minutes, unlimited data and 200 text messages for the same price.
The article says more than 20,000 names were gathered on an online petition against Rogers' pricing plans before the website went down on Wednesday.
Comments
“iphone 3G”
Posted by: Shelley - Jul 4, 7:49pm
You are wrong on one thing I just talked to AT&T and they said that new costumers can pay the iphone 3G for $199 and $299 but if you are already a costumer with them then you have to see if you have to pay $399 or $499 new costumers are already elagible!!!
“Re: iphone 3G”
Posted by: StuartOB - Jul 7, 11:05am
Good spot Shelley - thanks for the input.