Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) may have postponed iPad’s international roll-out by a month – but, within an hour of that announcement, all three UK iPhone carriers released identical statements declaring they “will offer dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May”.
—Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) will offer plans in Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK
—O2 in the UK only.
—Orange will offer plans in France, UK, Spain and Switzerland.
We have asked T-Mobile. 3 UK told us it won’t be offering iPad plans and Apple isn’t naming any carriers. Update: T-Mobile tells us: “Discussions continue between the relevant parties regarding the distribution of Apple and T-Mobile UK’s products and services. Updates will be provided as and when it is pertinent to do so.”
Nobody’s confirming pricing or other details yet. Those details will be given in a further announcement on May 10, along with iPad’s pushed-back international pre-order date and pricing announcement, according to a Vodafone spokesperson, who also told us retail “will all be through Apple” and “the arrangement is the same as in the States with AT&T”.
These are the first iPad carrier announcements outside the U.S., where AT&T (NYSE: T) offers two, month-by-month rolling price plans for the yet-to-ship-there 3G model.
Though the device is delayed, the international 3G announcements may be coming quicker than expected. Announcing iPad in January, Steve Jobs had said: “We hope to have our international deals in place in June/July time – we’re starting on that tomorrow. However, all iPad 3G models are unlocked and use new GSM microsims… internationally, if any carriers offer microsims, they’ll just work. We’ll be back this summer with other carriers offering deals internationally.”
Apple wangled innovative pricing out of AT&T – rolling contracts, taken out on-screen, that can be terminated with a month’s notice: $14.99 for 250Mb of data and $29.99-a-month for unlimited data. We don’t yet know if Vodafone and O2 will be offering month-by-month plans, but it’s likely.
Vodafone also has a deal to sell price plans along with Google’s Nexus One in Europe, though that deal – like that with Nexus One’s U.S. carrier Verizon – is pending this “spring’.
Vodafone tells us iPad will be the first time it has offered a device with a new-look micro-SIM. Asked if Vodafone would have offered the iPad price plans if the device had launched at April’s end as planned, a spokesperson said the carrier’s timeline is lock-step with Apple’s. O2 last year lost UK iPhone exclusivity,
To mobile carriers, iPad represents a new data income possibility – neither standard SIMs nor SIMs on existing contracts will work in the tablet, so 3G users will need to take out dedicated price plans as well as their mobile phone/data tariffs.
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