Optimus to offer pre-paid iPhone option in Portugal
Take this for what you will, but one of our ninjas tipped us off to an iPhone ad currently being Portugal by wireless carrier Optimus, which is a subsidiary of Orange. According to the ad, Optimus is going to be offering the iPhone 3G with a monthly tariff on both post and pre-paid accounts. Yep, you read that one correctly. While AT&T has explicitly said that they will not be offering the new iPhone 3G with any sort of pre-paid options, it looks like other carriers are reserving the option to provide the handset without a lengthy contract. The ad doesn’t give any indication as to what we might expect the unsubsidized pricing to be, but we’re working hard to dig up that info. Unfortunately, we’re not expecting any miracles here on the US side of things, as AT&T has been very explicit about the contractual requirements of the iPhone agreements. Remember when the rest of the world was madly trying to import American iPhones? Things might be going the other way this time around.
Thanks, António!
Wow, I can’t believe anyone would care…
yeah we barly care att all
these are the reasons the second iphone will put up huge numbers worldwide. 25 countries at launch and another 48 by end of the year.
extra $$, look to AAPL
I care…. why? Because if Apple is willing to forgo the monthly payment kickbacks from AT&T and are willing to let the iPhone be used on a prepaid plan in Europe then maybe they’ll do the same in the US on T-Mobile. Unlike a lot of iPhone geeks I don’t use my voice phone that much so I don’t want to pay $40+/month for a voice plan but I do want an iPod touch and a great mobile web browser and also occasionally make voice calls. I’d pay from $300-500 for the device but don’t want monthly recurring charges for something I don’t use. So for me this is great news… Apple, just bring this business model to the US and I won’t buy a Nokia or Blackberry. You are a hardware company, figure out a way to make money on the hardware.
I don’t care. How about some Blackberry Thunder news!
I thought Apple locked itself into a 5 year exclusivity contract in the US with AT&T?
(i.e., they can’t offer it to T-Mobile or come out with a CDMA version until 2012?)
This doesn’t explain why they’re no longer getting a share of the monthly fee though. That seems like the worst of both worlds.
Your Ninja must be from Africa and need more training.
What he don’t tell, is that Optimus is making a lot of marketing mistakes putting Apple crazy and thinking that was a mistake to sell iPhone through them. Another thing is the fee of 50EUR they charge to pre-order the iPhone that they don’t know how many they have to deliver on 11 July.
Please give your Ninja away and get a good Portuguese hunting dog
By the way BG, you are great with Blackberry News.
Now that ATT has made it clear that they are willing to go the distance in regards to making sure the iPhone leaves the store activated.
This has to be great for us non-iPhone users who are going to make a killing selling them on eBay.
Where there’s a will there’s a way. haha.
looks like it has to be activated for 30 days then you can cancel the service. They will charge the $200 when you cancel but you then have the hackers phone. If you cancel before 30 days they have something about the phone must be returned.
Im not interested in hacking my phone but that might be the only way to get one for that purpose without importing it.
Louis, they won’t be on Tmo for years.
Here in the Philippines, SingTel’s local leg (Globe Telecom) is also doing the same thing (non-contract availability). You’re still locked to the carrier though. and we don’t have details yet if it will be subsidized at $199 and $299
o2 UK has similar links to prepaid on their website too – no pricing of course…..
http://www.o2.co.uk/iphone/paygo
In the pre-paid option the iPhone will cost 499 and 599.
In this link u can see all the info on the pre paid option on optimus
(its in portuguese, but there is a self explanatory table)
pre-pago=pre paid
http://www.omeumundodigital.com/?p=259