UK iPhone price war opens with free add-ons

While Orange and O2 UK have made high profile statements that there will be no price war in the UK over the iPhone, O2 has opened up doors by cutting the price of the tethering option and giving free landline ADSL broadband to its existing iPhone customers.

This move follows the announcement that Orange had sold 30,000 iPhones on the first day it became available in the UK, which the company is claiming as a record for a handset launch. The company also included its Orange Wednesdays app that provides Orange iPhone and iPod touch users a two-for-one cinema voucher that can be used at screenings every Wednesday night.

However, O2 has responded with the incentives of offering a free trial of the Sky Sports TV package for the first 90 days, hoping to lure people in with a bumper package of festive sport and entertainment.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to recover from the confusion surrounding ‘unlimited data limits', Orange has come clean and stated that it won't cut off users breaching the 750Mb 'fair use' data limit on the iPhone. "We don't restrict the service, and we don't charge subscribers any more if they go over 750Mb. It's just an indication of where we'd prefer people to be," said the company.

"When people reach 750Mb they're free to use as much as they want after that. If we see customers using loads more than that though, then we'll send them alerts by SMS or phone call, to tell them they're using more than they should be."

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