Ireland has been chosen to be the fifth country to be graced with the iPhone. How do we compare to other countries? Well we don’t get “Visual Voicemail” to begin with. In fact, you’re charged 15c per minute to check your voicemail. You get stuck into an 18 month contract but that’s to be expected. It’s 2 years in the US so it’s not so bad (still a long time to keep the same phone though, by modern standards). How does this contract break down? Well the price points are actually the same as the UK price points, but we get 4 times less minutes. That’s right, we actually get 25%, one quarter, of the talk-time for the same price. And how about texts on those tariffs? You get 100, 150, or 250, depending on which tariff you go with. 100 euro a month for 250 texts? The UK tariffs are 500 texts for each. Even the cheapest one is 500.
And now the biggest, most ridiculous, most Irish difference: 1GB per month data traffic. Every other country gets “unlimited” data traffic on their iPhone plan (subject to an acceptable usage policy, of course) but Ireland gets 1GB, on any plan. Why does this matter? Well the iPhone is a data-hungry little machine. You can stream YouTube videos in not just that wimpy little embedded flash video format but a full h.264 stream. You can also stream MP3s within Safari (maybe you didn’t know that). It also checks your mail for you all the time. My iPod Touch is set to 15 minute intervals. That adds up over a month.
I don’t know how O2 managed it, but they got the most rotten deal in Europe going. And they’re probably going to make a fortune out of it.
The exchange rate from euro to yen is about 160 yen to the euro right now. At least that’s what the market says but what you don’t know is that compared to Ireland, the true exchange rate is closer to 100 yen to the euro. At McDonald’s everything is advertised at 100 yen, and there’s the “EuroSaver” menu in Ireland where it’s €1-based. Coke from machines here is about 120 yen to 160 yen, depending on whether it’s a can or a bottle. In Ireland it’s €1.20 to €1.80 if I remember correctly.
In this particular machine it’s especially cheap, and only 100 yen for a can of coke (63c) and 130 yen (82c) for a full 500ml bottle. Comparing Yamasa’s campus’s vending machines to UL’s campus’s vending machines, a UL bottle of coke (€1.80) is 220% the price of Yamasa’s. あり得ない。
The equivalent of a euro shop here is a 100-yen shop (hyaku-en-shoppu). You can buy anything for 100 yen, not just rubbish (though there’s plenty of that if you want it too).
update: RTE’s article on the iPhone tariff.
The carry trade has weakened the yen way below it’s value on a purchasing power basis, and it’s particular prevalent for us as the euro is one of the most overvalued currencies in the world, which I believe has been mainly caused by our badass head of the European central bank who refuses to cut rates in order to stem inflation. What a legend.
I don’t want to hijack your blog with my economic theories so I’ll stop here! Enjoy the absurd purchasing power.
The Sunday Tribune said 12gb per month. Not unlimited but hardly something you’re going to exceed any time soon.
Check out “Tariffs” here. O2 themselves say 1GB.
http://www.hoovers.com/free/co/news/detail.xhtml?ID=133852&ArticleID=20080229670.4_61d30009df0e0fb7&source_type%5B%5D=n
That’s the one that was in the Business Section of the Times. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.
O2 wrote back to me.
“Thanks for your email.
You’ve asked us about the Apple Iphone.
O2 are delighted to announce the launch of the I-Phone in Ireland. The IPhone handset is available to O2 bill pay customers and will be available for purchase from March 14th. Pre orders can be made through your local O2 Retail store. Competitive Price Plans start at 45 euros per month. The I-Phone is exclusive to O2 and can only be used on the O2 Ireland Network. Further information in relation to this exciting handset can be found at o2.ie.
O2 Customer Care”
Why thanks. That addresses absolutely everything I asked about. :/
I guess the two national newspapers got it wrong. Or the person talking to them hadn’t a clue what they were talking about.
RTE’s reported of it uses the figures from the website. I’m not sure where the papers got the numbers from. They have a quote from an O2 spokesman about the 12GB; perhaps the spokesman got it wrong?