Friday, February 29,2008 @ 9:10am
O2 Ireland defends controversial iPhone plans
The Irish version of the iPhone remains a good deal, despite its cost, insists the head of O2 Ireland. The device will be unusually expensive in Ireland, costing €399 ($605) for the 8GB version or €499 ($757) for the 16GB one; the latter costs the equivalent of €430 in the UK, or €370 ($499) in the US. Subscribing to the cheapest possible 18-month contract, an Irish iPhone user will have to pay a minimum of €1,209. This will still only net 1GB of data per month, and 175 minutes of talk-time, without any access to Visual Voicemail.
"You can't compare it with other products," says O2 Ireland CEO Danuta Gray. "Comparing it with a standard handset is just not like-for-like. I have music on it, videos on it, DVDs, photo albums, camera. To me it's just an amazing device and I think the type of price here compared with this type of functionality is where the value should be judged."
As a result, Gray argues, the lineups for the iPhone seen in other countries will likely be repeated on March 14th. "I'd say your Apple freaks will be queuing out the door when we launch," she notes. She adds, though, that anyone who has bought and unlocked a foreign iPhone will not be able to transition to a legal subscription. "We won't accept unlocked phones," she states.