O2 Angers Customers With iPhone 3GS Decison
There have been many angry O2 customer appearing on the internet, after the Network said it would be charging it’s customer who wanted to upgrade to buy out there existing iPhone contracts. Most customer had expected O2 to offer a similar deal to the one it ran after the iPhone 3G was announced last July. This allowed 1st Gen iPhone users to get the 2nd Gen iPhone at a reduced fee if they signed up to another 18-month contract with O2, which has the exclusive rights to the iPhone in the UK. Fuming O2 customers have been posting on there Twitter accounts and other social network pages saying how pissed off they are with what O2 are doing. While one customer has actually started a petition on O2 own forum.
UK iPhone users have also been shocked by the news that they will have to pay an extra £14.68 per month if they want to use the new tethering functionality that comes as part of the iPhone 3.0 software update. This allows users to connect their iPhone to their computer to access the internet over the 3G network. O2 has not responded directly to customer criticisms over the upgrade situation, but on the company’s Twitter stream, it repeatedly made clear that users would have to pay to break their contract and switch to the iPhone 3GS. Apple’s new iPhone goes on sale on June 19 in the UK. Consumers will have to pay as much as £184.98 for the 16GB model on the entry-level 18-month contract, or as much as £274.23 for the 32GB version. The 8GB iPhone 3G handset is available for free on some tariffs, or the reduced price of £96.89 on the most basic 18-month contract.
Hopefully, O2 will decide to do a U-turn on this later in the week. Maybe they think because they exclusive rights to the iPhone they can cash in on this……..if the internet communities reaction is anything to go by they could be very wrong. It does seem to be a strange move, especially in the current financial climate. People may find it difficult to maintain payments on one contract, let alone having to buy one out to buy another with the name network. It not like there asking to move over to Orange or Vodafone is it.
