iPhone coming to Jersey
We’ve been waiting a whlie – although some of us have already got one from the UK or France and unlocked it – but the iPhone is finally, officially coming to Jersey.
The provider: Jersey Telecom and Sure – although neither ‘official, Apple branded retailers’. The islands state owned telco and the Cable and Wireless owned plucky upstart have announced that they will be selling the Apple iPhone – the new 3G version complete with all features.
But JT will only have a very limited number of handsets – so if you want to make sure you get one you’ll have to call JT and register your interest.
Sure have said they should have plenty and so will be selling them in their shop within the next few weeks – apparently.
Interestingly – the handsets sold in Jersey, as with all other phones sold in the island will be available unlocked – so you can buy them through Jersey Telecom or Sure and then put another networks sim card in them.
This is because both of those networks are selling the iPhone curtosy of the European provider who is selling stock to the Jersey networks for them to sell on.
You’ll need to sign up to an 18 month contract to get the phone – don’t have the Sure prices yet but for JT the cheapest iPhone contract set at £35.99 – that will get you the phone for £199.99.
I imagine Sure will offer it on their 800 contract which comes in at £75 per month.
You can also get the phone for just £49.99 with JT but that will cost you nearly £60 per month.
At the moment though, and this is a bit of a downside given the main selling point of the iPhone is data, is that there’s no unlimited data plan for the iPhone deal with JT in Jersey.
You will have to pay 10p/MB for all data you use – apparently JT are looking at unlimited options, or even limited options for an extra monthly cost – similar to their Blackberry deal – but don’t have anything concrete yet.
Sure do offer a unlimited data but it’s only 800kb on their 800 plan – but you could get a booster which is about £10 per month for 1gb of data.
The other interesting side to this story is Airtel-Vodafone. The Bharti Telecom and Vodafone joint Channel Island network.
They’ve told me they WILL be offering the iPhone – eventually – and are currently in talks with Apple and Bharti to offer it as the official Jersey network – with visual voicemail and everything.
But not sure when that’s coming or what it will cost.
iPhone in Jersey?
As I have little more to pass time and occupy my mind than browse the internet on the slowest connection in the world in a browser with NO TABS – I thought I’d blog about something I saw the other day and forgot about.
I was just reading a story on the The Register about the iPhone coming to the UK very soon and probably through O2 – which is nice for people living in England who happen to want to use O2.
I’m sure I’d switch to O2 in a second if I lived in England to get the iPhone – after all British mobile companies are all pretty much the same.
But I live in Jersey – my choice is between Jersey Telecom (expensive but reliable), Sure (cheaper but patchy coverage) and Airtel-Vodafone (new, massive company, cheap but not overly great coverage).
At the moment I’m with Sure – I switched about a year ago just after they launched (until then Jersey only had a single mobile operator) but am thinking about switching again in the new year.
This will co-incide with my need for a new iPod – I’ve been holding out on buying a new one (I currently have a Gen One Nano) until a Touch iPod comes out – well now it has and I’ve agreed to wait until Christmas with my wife.
But Christmas is about the same time my current mobile contract runs out and the other day I noticed Jersey Telecom have a BIG iPhone display – shouting about the fact that it will be coming soon and offering DEMOS of the phone to anyone asking.
So this means it’s more than likely JT will be the Jersey iPhone retailer and provider – so do I switch to JT in January, pay a slightly higher monthly rate for a fewer free minutes and text messages but get an iPhone!
Or do I got to Airtel who currently offer the cheapest rate, free minutes that include UK mobile and landlines, a rapidly improving coverage and the backing of two massive mobile companies (Bharti and Vodafone) – but stick with a different phone.
The JT option gives me a device with everything built in (and data calls are FREE with JT) but with the Airtel option I can get a cheaper phone and buy an iPod Touch so have two seperate devices (something I’m used to) and have to pay data rates.
What would you do?