March 28, 2007 at 12:52 am · Authored by Ewan · Filed under Mobile, Mobile Data

Ajit picked up on the o2 flat-rate data plan (but only available if you are literally about to cancel your account) story. He is, to say the least, scandalised by it. Me likewise.

Link: Incredible! O2 offers fixed rate pricing ONLY if you threaten to leave!

Apparently, O2 will offer a fixed rate tariff – only if you threaten to leave (especially to join the Three network which is fixed rate tariff).

In other words, only the retentions team offers this tariff. The rest of the suckers (oops customers!) pay the ‘normal’ tariff(and new subscribers are still being charged anything from £48 to £225 for the same level of access) .

This is the first impact of Three’s fixed rate pricing – and in fact, another Operator spoke to me at an event and said that they are also planning fixed rate!

Ajit’s nice to call the o2 customers ’suckers’… I think complete-and-utter-chumps is a better description.

O2 must think that their customers’ heads button up the back.

But you know what? As I have commented before… o2 have got it right. Totally right. Why bother introducing a flat rate plan when most of your sucker-cum-chump customers are quite happy to pay 3-4 quid a meg? It’s a good strategy by o2. I standby it from a capitalist, commercial point of view.

A colleague of mine, a chump (an o2 customer) phoned up and asked about this and was told, flatly, NO WAY. NO WAY. TAKE A HIKE. ‘If you want unlimited, 75 quid a munffff, luv.’ He hung up dejected.

But had he gone through to cancellations, and been very direct with the ‘retentions’ team…. well, I wonder. I wonder.