The battle of the pricing plans is well underway with mobile phone company Meteor the latest to announce its iPad microsim deals.
After months of speculation as to when the iPad would be sold in Ireland it went on sale here last Friday. Consumers who faced uncertainty on which model to go for, now have a choice of data plans to choose from, if they plumped for the Wifi + 3G model.
Last Tuesday Vodafone and O2 revealed their pricing plans, followed by 3 on Wednesday and Meteor on Monday. First off the blocks with Micro Sim data plans was Cubic Telecom. The Irish headquartered mobile network operator, Cubic Telecom launched what it says is Europe’s first SIM card for the new iPad 3G, in May. The SIM card costs €75 and comes pre loaded with 50MB of data.
Meteor currently seems to come out best on its daily tariff for Micro Sim data at €2.99 per day on prepay and free on billpay for customers who sign up to Broadband to Go plans. This deal also includes access to Eircom’s wifi hotspots, which is good news for anybody with a Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad
02’s iPad data tariffs will be available without a minimum term contract and include free access to Bitbuzz Wi-Fi hotspots in Ireland. The tariffs are 500MB for €3.97 a day (for 24hrs) and 5GB for €19.90 monthly (for 30 days).
Similarly, all of Vodafone Ireland’s data plans will be available without a contract. It has launched two commitment-free plans specifically tailored for iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models, a 1 day and 30 day plan - available to customers using Vodafone Micro SIMs. The 1 Day Plan is ideal for customers who want to use mobile broadband on their iPad occasionally and the 30 Day Plan caters for customers who want to browse the web, download music and update apps on their iPad while on the move throughout the month. The 1 day plan costs €3.99 for 500MB of data per day and the 30 day plan, €20 for 5GB of data per month
3 is also offering data plans without a contract - €9.99 a month for 1GB and €19.99 for 15 GB of data a month.