iPhone on Orange - no Spotify, no MSN Messenger, no Facebook for you!
Remember the price war that was supposed to break out once O2 lost its exclusive contract to sell the iPhone in Britain?
Well, the price plans that Orange has published for the phone show little sign of an eagerness for hand-to-hand combat.
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But what does stand out when you examine Orange's price card more closely is what it says about the unlimited data that has been an essential part of the iPhone's appeal.
An asterisk next to the "unlimited" leads to a note saying "Fair Usage policy of 750MB/ month applies." Cue plenty of grumbling from potential customers, particularly on Twitter.
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Last night someone pointed me towards this clause in Orange's Terms and Conditions:
"Not to be used for other activities (eg using your handset as a modem, non-Orange internet based streaming services, voice or video over the internet, instant messaging, peer to peer file sharing, non-Orange internet based video). Should such use be detected notice may be given and Network protection controls applied to all services which Orange does not believe constitutes mobile browsing."It sounds as though services like Spotify, AudioBoo, Ustream and even Facebook messaging - increasingly popular with O2 iPhone customers - will be out of bounds for Orange users.
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The problem for the operators is that users no longer see the iPhone and similar devices as phones but as small computers. And who wants to be told 25 days into each month that they must now stop playing around with their computer and just use it to make calls?



Comments (2)
"We do recognise that iPhone customers will use popular streaming services such as YouTube, Spotify etc. As a result we do not intend to apply network protection controls to anyone, as long as they are within their usage allowance. The T&Cs are in place to reserve the right to restrict access should they continue to exceed our Fair Usage policy, and our other Mobile data users suffer a reduced data experience as a result."
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