Vodafone Ireland have announced today that the iPhone and iPhone 3GS will be available from March 25th 2010.
What is semi-interesting is that Vodafone are pitching the device at their full range of clients ie. both pre-paid and monthly and also business users.
They’re also going to be offering “tethering” which allows you to use your iPhone as a modem.
Though “tethering” is a “special” feature on the iPhone it’s standard on most “smart” phones, such as the Nokia N95, for example.
The pricing seems to be quite competitive, but how well that will integrate with existing contracts is not at all clear. In our case, for example, we have about 15 handsets with Vodafone. I don’t see why I’d want to pay a premium just for an iPhone – which I already have, as I bought an unlocked one from Expansys.
Trying to make sense of the pricing options on the Vodafone site would give you grey hair!
The price of the actual handsets (same model) vary from FREE to around €99 for the 8 Gb 3G, while the 32 GB 3GS can cost up to €300.
It’s also not clear if the handsets will be 100% locked to Vodafone’s network, which would render the incompatible with Maxroam and other services when travelling overseas.
Of course Vodafone already asked us all to sign up to be informed about the iPhone months ago, but have been silent ever since.
What kind of demand will they get?
Will they have enough hardware to handle it?
Will people be switching from rival carriers?
Michelle
Vodafone seem to have had good demand for their pre-release sales of iphones (I got one – it is unlocked). I suspect they may have pursued early adopters as a way of stress testing their network before full roll out.
I’m on Perfect Choice Access 300 which meant I got a 16GB 3Gs phone for free on the pre-release with an 18mnth contract, but it seems that things are different now.
Of course, all of that is academic as the Vodafone network has been down in my home area for the past 7 days, which is a bit of a problem as that’s the number on my business cards.