Some odd drawbacks to what is being offered...

O2 have announced that the iPhone is to be available in Ireland from March 14th 2008. This is welcome news, and somewhat surprising that Ireland has received the iPhone ahead of larger European countries, such as Italy and Spain.
Looking at the tariffs and the offering for Irish customers, we are surprised by some of the specifics:

Pros:

• approved carrier- just being able to use an iPhone in Ireland without having to unlock and void your warranty.
  • support- unlike any unlocked iPhones, AppleCare will cover an iPhone purchased in Ireland.
  • 1GB of data is included in the tariff, and starting at 45 euro per month (inc. 175 mins and 100 texts)- this makes it good value compared to current data/voice packages. Vodafone have expensive data packages, so O2 are a few steps ahead on providing data for phones.
  

Cons:

• no visual voicemail. Ireland appears to be the only country where the iPhone is available without the visual voicemail feature. We wonder what has happened here- this is one of the key features of the iPhone/carrier package in other countries. Very odd.
  • inclusive minutes and texts are less than those offered in the UK, plus the fact that you can't carry unused minutes over to the next month.
  • not only is there no visual voicemail, but O2 Ireland charge 15c per minute to listen to your messages. This is the same for other handsets on O2 Ireland, but come on- could this not have been waived for the iPhone offering to at least compensate for no visual voicemail?
  • data capped at 1GB- even stranger. In the early stages, O2 UK also capped data but later removed this after complaints from customers. One of the key selling features of the iPhone in the US is unlimited data. You would need to do quite a lot of browsing and emailing to use 1GB, but this is the iPhone! It is suppose to be used as an internet device. Surely O2 Ireland will have to remove or lift this limit? Even if the user opts for the highest tariffs, the 1GB data cap remains.
  

More details available from O2 Ireland on their tariffs page, and from Apple Store for Ireland or the Apple Store for the UK.
Check out our coverage on the cost of the iPhone in Ireland vs the UK, and our iPhone guide page.
Simon Spence/2008