European Bastards to Get Free iPhone and Great Monthly Plans

It’s official: O2 and Telefonica users in the UK and Spain will get the iPhone absolutely free if they sign up for a 18-month plan with a US$88 monthly cost. But how “free” is free? Is this really a better deal than AT&T’s US$1,975 24-month plan price? The answer is yes, absofrakinlutely. Those countries got really good deals, enough to convince me to buy the new version:

The total cost for the O2 18-month plan is US$1,591, which every month gets you:

• 1,200 minutes of voice calls.
• 500 text messages.
• Unlimited data transfer in both 3G and Wi-Fi networks (at The Cloud and BT OpenZone Wi-Fi spots.)
• Reduced roaming rates.

Sure, having 24 months will get your total price to $2,121. But the fact is that, after 18 months, you are free to get elsewhere, and you are getting almost three times the voice call minutes, and 2.5 times the amount of text messages.

Compare that to the US$1,975 iPhone 3G plan in AT&T:

• 450 minutes.
• 200 messages.
• Unlimited data transfer in 3G networks.

[O2 and Telefonica press release]