PAYG iPhone

Has anyone found out which network will be offering PAYG SIM only for iPhone 4 from launch and what the terms are??

Vodaphone seems to have a SIM only contract- admittedly from a '30day' period to 12month, but when I click for more info I get a 404 error

O2 are only offering to current customers and for reasons of inactivity on my part I have been a T-Mobile sufferer since I got a phone in ~1994 (OK it was Mercurey One-2-One then)
but they don't appear to be offering SIM only at launch anyway.

On Orange it isn't clear whether there'll be SIM only plans [cust serve "have no further information at this time"]

The point is I've ordered an unlocked one direct from Apple but don't think I will need to use as much as even £20 per month on a contract

A

Edited by nonymouse (Wed 23-Jun-10 20:10:18)

The problem here is the SIM. If you are already PAYG your iPhone 4 will work if you cut the SIM down. What the data costs may be is another matter entirely! There are guides as to how to chop the SIM to be found if you Google for them.

I have had no end of haggles with Vodafone, which resulted in me ultimately getting an O2 micro SIM with a £15 a month/30 day contract on Monday. You won't find this deal online or promoted in store and you're likely be too late now. I haggled in a store using my Vodafone bills as lever (lots of roaming costs attached to them that I bill back to my employer). It's also the current unlimited data deal that expires with the launch tomorrow. The number was transferred today. Thankfully, my current phone is unlocked! I'd have preferred to stick with Vodafone, but they don't do visual voice mail and they seemed utterly clueless about Micro SIM availability for tomorrow unless I could be asked to go and queue up outside a store at 7am! I could have cut down my SIM, but why should I - their loss albeit that they were offering me a £10 a month deal with 500K of data.

PAYG for iPhone will arrive, but with so many premium customers chasing so few phones this month you can understand why the networks are holding back! My advice to you would be to get a 30 day contract and then switch when PAYG arrives. That's if they are a better deal for you. I suspect that few, if any, PAYG contracts are. They may seem to cost less, but they claw back those costs all over the show with charges for using voicemail and charges for out of agreement calls of all sorts. I once heard them described as a licence to print money as far as the networks are concerned.

I'm astounded that anyone is a T-Mobile customer. I dumped them years ago. They offered poor service and bad value all round.

What's the point when you only save about £70 over a fully unlocked one. Then have all the hassle of getting it unlocked.

3 seems to be doing what you require from 25th June.

check Here

Ooh, thanks for the link - hadn't spotted that, and I intend to go with 3, after using them for the iPad and finding their coverage is excellent.

Those are very impressive tariffs...... and would have made me think twice even though have had poor experience previously with Three.... already bit the bullet with O2 this morning 32gb version arriving tommorrow.....

Yay!!

iPhone 4 ordered from Apple Store on 15th (but late in the day) was due to ship on 2nd july but shipped today

I assume someone out there already has one, but is having too much fun to post and tell us how it's going?


A

Was wondering the same.

Don't like the fact that it has A[ssisted]-GPS. And the connectivity issue... :?

Added: O2 took a tenner out my PAYG account for the continuation of the free web & wi-fi bolt-on. Stopped further ones. It was hardly used really, prefer home wi-fi.

Edited by deleted (Thu 01-Jul-10 00:57:09)

I believe Assisted-GPS is enhanced GPS. As well as using the normal GPS satellite signals, it triangulates off the local mobile transmitter masts to home in on your position faster when you switch it on. A non-assisted GPS has to wait for less frequently transmitted satellite data (ephemera?) to work out which of several theoretically possible positions on the globe it is currently at. .... I think!

And the connectivity issue... :?

Reading around the analyses from people with some actual expertise, it seems that Apple made an engineering choice in favour of a high performance antenna that is susceptible to degradation in certain circumstances, rather than a lower performing but less susceptible one (and all seem to conclude with "you know what, I'm getting one of these").

Playing around in the O2 shop, I could sometimes replicate the phenomenon, but cannot for the life of me think of any way I am ever likely to hold it that would cause the issue in use.

My guess is that those who tend to use a "bearpaw" grip are most likely to have issues, those enlightened souls who use the talon grip (much more secure anyway) least likely.

I suspect that a lot of the lost calls are the (apparently easily fixed) screen-off proximity sensor problem causing people to accidentally terminate calls with their cheeks.

(and as Alan says Assisted GPS is enhanced GPS - this is a good thing)

I have noticed that on iOS4 location services are much faster and much more precise than before.





5...4...3...2....

Edited by ian_c (Thu 01-Jul-10 02:42:45)