Following Orange, Vodafone announces plans to sell the iPhone in the UK

Oh wait, it was yesterday, adding to my point about loads happening in the mobile world recently. But, why did Vodafone not jump straight to the gun yesterday and tell the world of its deal with the iPhone?

The answer? Strategy. I think that both companies could have had the iPhone signed to their networks for quite some time, but neither one knew about the other. Apple probably then gave the go-ahead to both companies to announce the deal, but Vodafone may have had suspicion and held back a day. By holding back a day they were able to see Orange announce their deal but more importantly the time-scale that Orange have put on it.

How does this matter though? Well it’s really, really simple – Vodafone have said their iPhone will launch later and by doing this, it gives them time to see how Orange price the device and be able to adjust their accordingly. Cunning little plan and even if they did know about Orange’s deal and vice versa, this little strategy still stands.

So what now for consumers? Well, much, much more leverage and an even bigger price war erupting. Orange will probably now be very conscious about the fact Vodafone will be basing their iPhone pricing on Orange’s, and may compensate for that by cutting costs even more so, pressuring Vodafone into either not being able to outbid, or to have to match their plans.

This is a really good thing for business customers though. Vodafone’s network already carries millions of business users. Vodafone has stated that it is using the iPhone primarily for current customers, thus the iPhone could begin being used in many more businesses – something which Apple will not be complaining about one little bit.

If you’re interested in getting the iPhone on Vodafone’s network, then visit their website and register your interest. If not, then just sit back and enjoy the scenery:

Lastly, there’s the shock news today of Orange announcing the sale of the iPhone in the UK, thus ending O2’s exclusivity deal, which, in turn feeds back into the first point I made. With Orange set to become the biggest mobile operator in the UK, Apple have seized the opportunity to finally bring the iPhone to mass market. It doesn’t stop there though. Rumours predicted that the network who wins the iPhone contract will only be able to sell the 3G model, though Orange confirmed today that they’d be selling the newer 3Gs, too.

Great news for me as I’m a current Orange customer, but what will it actually bring to consumers looking to buy the device?

• A lower entry price – I’m very hopeful of this, in fact it’s something I’m almost certain of. Considering Orange’s network coverage isn’t as good as O2’s, along with their reputation, they’re going to really have to try to reel people in from O2.
• Good deals for current Orange customers - I’m currently an Orange customer and I’m quite satisfied. I’m also pretty certain that Orange will offer very good upgrade options to their current customer base – they always do. Thing is, if they don’t offer me a good upgrade path, I’ll just threaten to switch to O2, which brings me onto my next point.
• Leverage - Because there’ll be two companies offering the iPhone it can finally be competitive. This means that both O2 and Orange are going to be fighting for your business. If you’re any good at bargaining then you can use this to your advantage, especially if you’re a business customer.

The funny thing is, I saw this coming well before the rumours of early this year. The first sign that sent alarm bells ringing in my head was the fact that O2 had signed the Palm Pre to their network.

I didn’t think that Apple would be too comfy with the operator that is exclusively selling their phone to go on to sell their phone’s biggest enemy, a so called iPhone killer.

The second set of alarm bells were rang when my local O2 store in Eldon Square, Newcastle revamped it’s shop. Instead of using the extra space they’d created to demo the new iPhone, they actually cut the amount of iPhones on the bench and replaced them with other smartphone competitors.

I think by these two actions, O2 signalled that they were getting ready to lose exclusivity on the most popular smartphone in the world. By building a bigger portfolio of other smartphones, such as Blackberrys, they began positioning themselves, ready for the change.

I think the biggest loser of this weeks news is Vodafone from one perspective and O2 from another.

The reason I think O2 have lost out is obvious, they lost the iPhone and are now going to be in a constant price war with Orange over the iPhone. Orange are at the advantage as O2 have already set their prices.

But why Vodafone? Well, in a way I feel a little sorry for Vodafone, who we’re once a massive power in the mobile market. They have a really good product portfolio and a really good network, but they’re being pushed into last place by other networks who now carry the iPhone. It’s a bit of a kick while they’re down really, being pushed into last place and being the last of the mobile giants not to offer the iPhone.

Hopefully their rebranding will serve them well and Apple may see more value in that brand an consequently contract it to sell it’s phone.

So when can we expect the iPhone to turn Orange? Well they said by the end of the year, which is another 3 months. Realistically though, they want to be releasing it in time for Christmas sales, which start at around about mid-November.

Whatever happens, I’ll be getting one asap, I’ve already registered my interest and you can too, just visit www.orange.co.uk and follow the links.

I’m not sure whether it’s a network mechanism or not. What I mean by this is, because I’ve been a very heavy user (an hours worth of Skype calling and I’d uploaded 1GB of data) the network might have measures in place to make sure the weight of dragging me along didn’t affect other users. This could make a lot of sense, by cutting off and slowing down heavy users at peak times, you encourage them to use their home internet or not to use it at all.

Having said this, I did manage to get a few successful connections that stayed open until I myself closed them. I didn’t really perform any really heavy tasks yesterday, simply because the speed and availability wasn’t always there.

What was slightly annoying was the fact that as I was trying to translate Pokemon Platinum from Japanese to English, my connection kept dropping therefore I couldn’t access Google Translate to find out that it doesn’t know how to translate the text I was inputting. For anyone who didn’t get that, what I basically said was, “don’t use Google Translate to translate Japanese to English – especially if you’re using a slow connection, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”

On the whole, day three was a slight disappointment, both in trying to translate Pokemon and using my mobile broadband, maybe it was fate having a bit of a laugh at me for saying that it was going well a day earlier, or maybe it was just a bad day for mobile broadband, we’ll never know. Let’s hope that tomorrow gives me some better results.