Vodafone will launch the iPhone on its UK network on January 14.
£30, plus £59 for the phone, will get you 300 minutes a month plus 1Gb of data on a 24 month contract. Deals then vary up to £80 a month over an 18 month contract, which will gain subscribes the phone free – with 3,000 call minutes and the same1Gb data.
Business customers will also be offered the phone, with deals not too far removed from the equivalent consumer offerings.
All the deals are more expensive at the monthly contract level than the Tesco Mobile price plan, which starts at £20 per month, and operates on the O2 network.
But Vodafone's tariff plans perhaps show that operators are not yet prepared to race each other to the bottom on the iPhone. Although the devices offer a great customer acquisition tool for operators, many question their profitability overall – given the deals operators have to strike with Apple, and the potential loss of control over the content that consumers access.