31st January - O2 announced a radical shake-up of its entire range of consumer Pay Monthly and small business tariffs, including the iPhone. With more than half (52%)* of mobile phone users finding tariff structures and offers confusing, the new tariffs will be simple and straightforward and O2’s most competitive to date, offering market-leading value and bringing flat rate data to all new price points.

All O2 consumer Pay Monthly tariffs for new and upgrading customers will be brought in line with six simple price points where customers simply choose the text and minute bundle which most suits them. For iPhone customers, both existing and new, this means even more texts and minutes, making the iPhone one of the best deals on the market. The new tariffs will be available from February 1st 2008.

Once the price point is chosen, customers can then customise their tariff by adding from a range of seven available £7.50 Bolt Ons, including unlimited data, unlimited O2 to O2 calls, unlimited anyone texts and unlimited weekend calls. Customers on a 600 minute or more tariff (equivalent to £35 on an 18 month contract) will get one Bolt On of their choosing free of charge. As part of the tariff refresh, access to voicemail will now be free across all new price points.

iPhone

The three current tariffs for iPhone will be brought in line with the minute and text bundles offered on the new and improved tariff structure. This means that customers on a £35 per month contract will get three times more minutes and more than double the number of texts than before. The new £45 iPhone tariff gives the same amount of minutes and texts as the former £55 tariff so customers who were on the £55 tariff can either save £10 per month or take the new £75 tariff with a massive 3000 minutes and 500 texts a month. All iPhone customers will continue to receive unlimited data browsing and access to The Cloud’s Wi-Fi hotspots as free bolt ons to their contract, worth £15 per month. Existing iPhone customers won’t miss out as they will be transferred to the new tariffs during February, with all customers benefiting by mid March.

“This industry is infamous for confusing consumers with the number and complexity of tariffs,” said Sally Cowdry, Marketing Director, O2 UK. “We’ve listened to what our customers want and acted, offering simple but competitive tariffs across all our handset range. The iPhone is already our fastest ever selling device and this added value will allow us to appeal to an ever greater segment of the market – it is an unbeatable proposition.”

Unlimited Data For all

O2 also today announces the launch of a new £1 per day flat rate tariff for mobile web browsing from your handset as standard on all new consumer Pay Monthly price points. This is ideal for occasional data users and means customers will never again face the prospect of accidentally running up large data bills. The maximum they will pay is £1 if they browse more than 20-25 pages in a day. Below this, they will pay approximately 4-5p per page. More regular data users can opt for the Unlimited Web Bolt On at £7.50 per month.

Sally Cowdry continued, “Unlimited will mean unlimited on O2. As long as customers use our services as they are intended – for example, their fingers to text and their handset to browse – and do not affect quality for others, they can do as much as they like without having to worry. We believe we are the only company in the market to be so open around fair use**.”

Small Business

O2 small business customers will also benefit as part of the tariff refresh with the number of available SME tariffs reduced from 22 to 8, making it clearer and easier for customers to choose what they really want. Each price point includes unlimited O2 to O2 calls, unlimited calls to 10 nominated landline numbers, and unlimited O2 voicemail, as well as the best UK to Europe rates. SME customers can then also choose from a range of available Bolt Ons to tailor their package to best suit their business needs. 1st Feb also sees the launch of the new Business Super User tariff including unlimited UK calls to standard land-lines and mobiles, 1000 minutes of calls to Europe, unlimited voicemail, mobile email and Internet for £120 per month.

In addition, SME customers taking out a new 24 month contract will receive a 20% discount on their subscription and any minute and message Bolt Ons. Customers taking out a 36 month contract receive a 25% discount.