France Telecom’s Orange will be holding late-night openings at 12 of its stores for the launch of Apple’s revolutionary iPhone on Wednesday November 28, 2007.
Bordeaux, Lille, Lyons, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nancy, Nice, Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg and Toulouse will be welcoming iPhone fans from 6:30pm onwards. In Paris, Orange will take this opportunity to inaugurate its brand new store at 125, avenue des Champs-Elysées.
As exclusive carrier for iPhone in France, Orange has developed a range of four “Orange for iPhone” plans.
All four “Orange for iPhone” plans include:
• Visual Voicemail, an industry first, which allows consumers to see a listing of their voicemails, decide which messages to listen to, then go directly to those messages without listening to previous messages. Just like email, Visual Voicemail on iPhone enables users to immediately access the messages that interest them most, in the order they want.
• Unlimited access to email and the Internet 3, which combined with the revolutionary features of iPhone, at last offers true Internet browsing
With this range of dedicated offers, Orange is meeting iPhone customer expectations in terms of voice, sms & wifi, with prices ranging from EUR49 to EUR119 euros per month, and the iPhone available for EUR399.
Orange is also offering iPhone at EUR549 to customers who do not wish one of the four “Orange for iPhone” plans and at EUR649, without a plan. The cost of unlocking the handset is 100 euros during the six months following the acquisition of the iPhone, regardless of the package chosen.
Source: France Telecom
“France Telecom expects to sell between 400,000 and 500,000 iPhone contracts in a full year, Chief Executive Officer Didier Lombard said on Wednesday,” Cyril Altmeyer reports for Reuters.
Full article here.
I thought the EU had better phone rates. Looks very expensive compared to US.
In the EU, one only pays for the incoming call. Whereas, in the US, you pay for incoming and outgoing. Makes a difference, but I still think it’s all too expensive for me. I’d much prefer more flexibility, like PAYG or contracts without data, or data paid pro rata. It’s also the tied contract that puts me off, so I bought an unlocked quad band Nokia off ebay. I am happy.
edit: outgoing calls, not incoming calls are paid for.
Apple has been ripping its European customers off for years.
A Dell or HP computer costs about the same in Europe as in the U.S.
A Mac (or iPhone, or iPod) costs the same in €’s as in $’s.
Here in Germany, the ‘cheapest’ iMac costs €1199,- in the U.S. $1199,-
But €1199,- equals $1768,-
That means the cheapest iMac costs $569,- more. This applies to all Apple products.
It’s a f***ing rip-off!
Apple would have many more European customers if they played fair, and didn’t give the impression here in Europe that they’re the new M.S.
But there is something in the Orange offering that not im option in U.S…:
«Orange is also offering iPhone at EUR549 to customers who do not wish one of the four “Orange for iPhone” plans and at EUR649, without a plan. The cost of unlocking the handset is 100 euros during the six months following the acquisition of the iPhone, regardless of the package chosen.»
That means that the official unlocked IPhone is cheaper than in Germany, where the same is officially proposed bt T-Mobil at 999€ (or 666 for the satanists…)
It’s means also that with this unlocked feature the iPhone could be used with much cheaper plans from others networks, without loosing its AppleCare service. Indeed those non-Orange competitions could not give access to the VoiceMail service…
What the heck, supposedly (I have heard) we Americans subsidize the cost of prescription drugs for the rest of the world. Guess you guys in Europe will have to do the same for our Macs.
Gavron, you nicely forget that the Euro has also been at 0.8 to 1 USD not too long ago.
Never heard any complaint at that time right?