If you’re one of the old school who bought your iPhone on an O2 contract, a word of warning before you upgrade – check the small print.

Avid Bitterwallet reader Dominic has been in touch to let us know that you won’t get what you expect from O2’s new improved “unlimited text” tariffs:

As a subscriber of the old £35 a month tariff (600 mins and 500 texts) I thought it was a good deal to change to their £40 a month for 600 mins and ‘unlimited’ texts… but there’s a catch.

At the moment on the £35 a month tariff you can text an international number or send a picture message and it comes out of your 500 message allowance. With a new ‘unlimited text’ tariff you have to pay extra for picture messages and international texts. This wasn’t explained to me and so I cancelled my ‘upgrade’ on the subsequent phone call.

We’ve had a check and it’s now 20 pence per MMS and 16 pence per international text. Even if you stay on the same tariff, you’ll still find yourself with the new ‘unlimited texts’ alternative and having to pay for texts that were included in your allowance. Having said that, if you’ve finished your contract you might be better off looking at O2’s Simplicity deals – instead of £40 per month for two years, you pay half the price for half the contract length.

So O2 commissioned an independent survey to determine download speeds for mobile handsets in the UK. Perhaps they went into it assuming they’d be king of the hill, but in fact they weren’t. While O2 scored best for music downloads, the survey revealed that Vodafone offered the fastest speeds for web browsing. D’oh!

The survey measured speeds in 150 locations across the UK at different times of the day, seven days weeks, over a two month period – the survey attempted to mimic general usage patterns to determine what broadband speeds are available to consumer for the top five networks – O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and Three.

O2 was the zippiest for music downloads with Vodafone coming in second place. But in terms of web browsing via mobile, Vodafone was quickest and Orange, O2 and T-Mobile shared second place.

Unfortunately, that information is about as useful as a headless crab, because no geographical data was released, on the basis that overall there is little difference. Across all the results, perhaps, but when you’re in a town where some networks are spotty at best, a local breakdown is pretty handy, no? And that’s no doubt the real reason, we imagine.

[Telegraph]

Of course it’s in the interests of a major Wi-Fi network to claim mobile service providers are in £G 3G meltdown, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Techcrunch reports that The Cloud are actively scaremongering, reporting that data services are at breaking point due to ‘the rise in smartphone usage and the accompanying ‘unlimited’ data plans, along with social networking, online video and music streaming, all of which encourage data usage’.

Even if The Cloud are pushing the story to suit their own agenda, it won’t come as a surprise to anybody – it wasn’t so long ago that O2 admitted their data network was falling down in the face of increasing 3G usage, with traffic across the UK doubling every four months causing prolonged network failures in London.

And while the service providers pump more and more money into strengthening their service – O2 claims to have pumped £30 million into improving infrastructure at the end of last year -it seems unlikely operators will continue providing unlimited or overly generous data plans. Not only is there a whole slew of brand new, data-hungry smartphones on the way, but continuing sales of netbooks and the likelihood of 3G tablets becoming mainstream products in the next two years – it’s all likely to force providers to rethink their data deals with consumers.

[Techcrunch]

Here’s the second semi-final of our Best Company In Britain 2009, and it’s turning out to be a slightly less passionate and more clinical event than its Worst Company counterpart from last month.

So, from yesterday’s first semi-final, we’ve established that Amazon are very popular with you all and that Ebuyer have a fair few fans out there as well – those two will line up in tomorrow’s final.

But who will be there with them? We honestly couldn’t say from the four companies you’ve got to choose from today – they all received a similar number of nominations and it’s just too close to call.

You’ve got until midnight tonight to cast your votes and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the grand showdown. Bring your dinner.

O2 are readying themselves for an assault on the landline calls market with an upcoming offering that has generated plenty of warmth over at HotUKDeals.

You’ll have to be an O2 Home Broadband customer to qualify, but the tariffs they’re offering are

With line rental included, customers will be able to choose between….

£9.50 p/m: Evening & Weekend – unlimited calls to UK homes on evenings and weekends.

£12.50 p/m: Anytime – any time, unlimited calls to UK homes. It also offers unlimited calls to 0845/0870 numbers and landlines in over 20 international countries

Hide My Number, Last Caller ID and Last Number Delete will come with the packages and extras such as Voicemail, Call Waiting, Caller Display, Call Barring and Ring Back will be available as paid-for bolt-ons.

If you’re not currently an O2 broadband customer, there’s a natty two-months-free deal on until the end of January, and as they are one of the more highly-rated telecoms companies, it could be a deal that’s well worth chasing.

The box underneath is where you get to tell us otherwise and there’s more debate on the offer, as well as a detailed breakdown of the tariffs, over at HotUKDeals.

[thanks to HUKD member mk-donald]

So, what do have for you today? Some free broadband, some free money and some much needed warmth and respite from Dame Icy Conditions’ reckless and persistent assaults on our precious nipples.

Gratitude and garlands should be aimed in the direction of HotUKDeals – they’re the ones with ALL the bargain knowledge-beans.

Are you dead from the winter yet? If you’re not, you’re probably keener than shit to get yourself warmed up somehow, anyhow. Short of printing out pages and pages of Bitterwallet posts and burning them on a fire, there’s very little that you can do really.

Until now. You can order yourself one of these, a Cozy Blanket, for only £5.00. It “comes with two generous fitting sleeves so you have complete freedom of movement to handle telephones, TV remote controls, cups, books, magazines, snacks, lap tops and much much more.” Like your precious nipples for example.

Moving on swiftly, it’s time to look again at mobile broadband. Loads of us are the move these days and need to access our broadband while we’re doing it. For example, tramps, who need to get online to find out where the nearest soup kitchen is or to stock up on affordable Cozy Blankets.

Right now, there’s an offer from O2 that will give you a mobile broadband dongle for pay as you go broadband for just £10. Plus, according to O2, you’ll also believe to access free WiFi via some kind of Cloud as well, although that sounds highly unlikely.

Finally today, a way to save money and possibly avoid nasty bank charges in the future. Move your account to the Alliance & Leicester and you could be staring down the barrel of a £100 chunk of cashback from them, as well as some Quidco quids into the bargain.

Terms and conditions apply obviously, but if the new Halifax advert (or indeed their vile new overdraft charging scheme) has sickened you enough to move away from them, this could be just the deal for you. An enormous boon, and we’re always on the lookout for enormous boons…

(deals found by HUKD members bargainshunter, SunTzu and Mottmania)

It’s top tip time, particularly if you’re an O2 pay-monthly customer travelling abroad and hoping to dodge outrageous data tariffs with a bolt-on. No, this is a proper top tip. What do you mean, not like the last one? Your koi carp pond stayed ice free by pouring enough table salt in, didn’t it? Shut up then.

O2 offers to two bolt-ons to travellers:

• Data Abroad 10, which costs £20 per month for 10MB of data to use overseas
• Data Abroad 50, which costs £50 per month for 50MB of data to use overseas

Both can be added for just one month, although if you want to use the service for longer you’ll have to give 30 days notice. So far so good. But avid Bitterwallet ready Tony points out it’s not so clear cut, especially if you want to add a bolt-on at short notice:

I’m going to Spain for a week in a couple of days and need roaming data, so yesterday I phoned O2 to order their Data Abroad 50 Bolt-On. No problem said the operator, I could add the Bolt-On to my account, but because my billing date was in a fortnight’s time, I’d only receive about half the data allowance.

Billing for the bolt-on is done proportionally – I would only receive two week’s allowance before the billing date – around 25MB – and the second half the following month. If I went over my 25MB while in Spain, I’d be charged at their standard rate for European roaming data  – £3 per MB.

And naturally I’d still be charged the full amount for half the data, but in two installments over the next two bills. 25 MB for £50 is still cheaper than O2’s standard rates, but I still feel like I’ve been mugged.

We spoke to O2 Customer Services and Tony isn’t wrong, so the moral of the story is if you want roaming tariffs abroad, call O2 well before you travel to discuss it, or you might get screwed over by their proportional billing shenanigans.

It’s taking them months to confirm what everyone already knew, but O2 have finally come clean and admitted they’ve been offering iPhone users in the UK a raw deal. Over the past six months the handset has been rendered little more than an expensive paperweight (admittedly a paperweight that’s good for stashing yankee doodle on), especially in London where users have been unable to make or receive calls or send data on a regular basis

According to O2, data traffic across the UK has been doubling every four months causing prolonged network failures in the capital. Not that it should be your concern when you’re forking out £35 a month, but the service provider want you to know they’re now on the case after investing £30 million in improving network capacity throughout December. The fact that there are now other providers offering alternative iPhone tariffs is, of course, incidental.

The head of O2 Ronan Dunne said:

“Where we haven’t met our own high standards then there’s no question, we apologise to customers for that fact. But it would be wrong to say O2 has failed its customers en masse.”

How high are O2’s standards, exactly? Most customers would have been happy for their phones to be able to make and receive phone calls – that sounds more like a fundamental requirement rather than a matter of standards. Interestingly, O2 also stated it is “liaising with handset manufacturers, including Apple and RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, to learn about applications that could place heavy demands on the network”. Maybe they’ve missed the ad breaks during Corrie and This Morning for the past year but heavy usage apps are hardly new – shouldn’t they have been doing that since day one?

[Financial Times]

Apparently, there may be some of you still reading the site over Christmas, so the boss is demanding we tumble arse-over-tit down the ungritted path to the BW office, so we might continue to ladle news from simmering consumer tech broth. And so it’s to the iPhone and news that Vodafone is gearing up to begin selling the iPhone from Janaury 14th.

Orange and Tesco have entered the iPhone market in the past few weeks – whereas Orange could offer little extra than and slightly cheaper tariff and the hope of better coverage, Tesco went for a tariff that undercut both O2 and Orange – if you were prepared to pay through the nose for your handset. So what’s the good news from Vodafone? A £35-per-month tariff for a free 3G handset (on a 24 month contract) puts Vodafone on a par with O2 and Orange (and to get a free 3G handset through Tesco means paying £60 a month), but unlimited texts on Vodafone may suit plenty more punters:

[Note - whether any of these tariffs are a good deal or not depends on whethr you accept a 24 month contract as the norm now and don't roll your eyes whenever it's mentioned]

Courtesy of TechCrunch Europe

The major fly in the ointment is that rather than offering unlimited* (*fair usage shenanigans) data usage, it’s capped at 1GB. As applications become increasingly data-hungry, it’ll be interesting to see how many regular customers hit that ceiling in the months to come.

It’s the end of the week and also the end of the first round of voting in our seemingly-endless Worst Company In Britain 2009 contest. Don’t worry – like an advent calendar, it’ll all be over by Christmas Day and there’ll be no cheap and nasty chocolate to scoff on the way.

We end the first stage with another phonedown showdown – today’s grapple of crapness is between Vodafone and O2. Perhaps you’ve never used either company and couldn’t give a toss. Perhaps you want to vote for O2 out of spite because they brought the iPhone to the UK. It’s entirely up to you, but you’ve only got until midnight.

You can find out who came out on bottom between HSBC and Paypal here and catch up with the rest of the round one results here. Plus, owing to popular demand, there’s a picture of a large giraffe hanging about shamelessly outside a Travelodge here.

Holy moly. If Orange wasn’t prepared to start a pricing war with O2 over the iPhone, then maybe Tesco will; we’ve confirmed this morning that Tesco Mobile will sell the iPhone:

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise; while Tesco Mobile is obviously a virtual network, it actually operates through O2’s network. Tesco peddling the iPhone through allows O2 some control in guarding its overall market share. This potentially low-cost option (tariffs haven’t been confirmed yet) through what many perceive as a value brand, will still mean O2 generates revenues – it’s better to have a hand in any demand for a cheaper option, than none at all.

Interestingly, according to the BBC’s technology reporter Rory Cellan-Jones, Tesco may be selling the iPhone by Christmas. Vodafone was expected to become the third provider of the iPhone, but they won’t be offering it until early 2010.

Here is the news. The days of O2’s iPhone exclusivity are now OVER! It is OFFICIAL!

As of tomorrow (Tuesday 10^th) Orange will be offering the little-known handset that has rapidly become known as the ‘JesusPhone’ in certain circles, and like decent honourable sorts, O2 are now allowing their iPhone-using customers to unlock their phones, enabling them to switch to another service provider – and here’s the official website telling you how to do it.

Contracts being what they are, if you’re locked into a deal with O2, you’ll need to honour the remainder of the minimum term with hard currency if you choose to go elsewhere. Pay and go customers will have had to have been with O2 for a minimum 12 month period, and they’ll be charged a one-off disconnection fee of £15.

With the Orange offering coming in somewhere on the scale between ‘more or less the same as O2’ and ‘piss poor’ it’ll be interesting to see how many O2 customers migrate.  Still, it gives us an excuse to pump another JesusPhone story into your shattered faces…

[Thanks to Bitterwallet reader Amzmalhotra for the tip]

We hear you – we should be covering more iPhone news. There are only so many hours in the day, but we’ll give it a shot. While we blow our wages on our 12th consecutive battery life app, you get to decide the best course of action for fresh faced iphone buyers new to the wonderful world of dropped calls and a battery life that’ll see you through a text message if you’re lucky.

In the blue corner – O2. Everyone seems to rate their customer services, their bundles allow for MMS messaging and texts sent from abroad, they haven’t got shirty about data allowances but then their 3G coverage both sucks and blows. In the orange corner… Orange. They managed to somehow screw up what should have been the easiest product announcement in the world. Their tariffs don’t distinguish them from O2, they’ll charge for MMS message and roaming SMS on top of any tariff and nobody has a kind word to say about their customer services. On the plus side, Orange boasts better 3G coverage and they’re offering tethering charges which aren’t entirely unreasonable.

Finally, there’s the opponent that won’t enter the ring until January – Vodafone. They’re talking of some big surprises and exciting tariffs for their iPhone offers, but so did Orange and look what happened there. And so to Friday’s poll – how would you advise a new iPhone customer to buy? What do you mean, there’s no fourth option suggesting an Android handset? Be quiet.

Rather than gliding to the top of the mobile glitterati with the launch of their iPhone packages, Orange has stumbled onto the scene like a drunk baby giraffe wearing roller boots. Bitterwallet has now learnt of another significant difference between what Orange and O2 have to offer Jesus phone owners; MMS messaging and texting from abroad is going to cost you on Orange.

Bitterwallet reader Jamey got in touch to alert us to the charges, which aren’t explained on Orange’s iPhone brochure site. MMS messages sent on O2 – picture or video – will cost four text messages from your bundled allowance; send the same message on your Orange iPhone, and you’ll be charged 25 pence – regardless of whether you have bundled texts remaining. O2 will also charge you four messages from your allowance for text messages sent while abroad – Orange will charge 10.8 pence for texts sent from Europe Zone 1 countries, 40 pence for messages sent from the US, and up to 50 pence to send a text from New Zealand.

If you’re already an Orange customer you may be well aware of these charges. For O2 customers looking to make the switch, or indeed for anybody else considering signing up, not only is there no mention of MMS or roaming text charges on the brochure site, they’re not even mentioned in the specific iPhone terms and conditions (which you’ll only find through the link below the Pay As You Go plans). In fact the charges are ignored completely, the only reference to them being:

It’s further evidence of how little thought has gone into offering competitive price plans, and how Orange are clearly hoping to retain and grow their customer base by doing nothing more than exploiting the product’s brand. When Orange released details of the prices on Monday, near-identical tariffs to those established by O2 and bizarre data restrictions on wifi connectivity didn’t draw kind comments, and two days later Orange have lifted the restrictions on wifi usage. They’ve also introduced tantalisingly low tethering charges from £4.89 a month – there’s no information on how much data this will buy you, although we’d guess at 500 MB a month on an 18 month contract. One further point for those of you still considering going to Orange – if you order your iPhone online you’ll have to pay a delivery charge; order it less conveniently by telephone and Orange tell us that delivery is free. Why? Go figure.

Being only the second service provider to support the iPhone should have made stealing O2’s crown as easy as shooting fish in a barrel – how has Orange got this so wrong?

Orange have finally released their tariffs for the iPhone, a week before the handset is released by the service provider. And despite promising us that anybody thinking they’d be identical to O2’s prices “should think again”, nothing of the sort has transpired. In fact, when we first told you that the Carphone Warehouse was advising customers that Orange iphone tariffs were fixed to match O2, we were pretty much on the money. Not only that, Orange have introduced some very interesting restrictions on your data usage.

The only difference of note is that Orange has introduced a new tariff for under £30 on a 24 month contract, and has doubled the minutes and text allowance on the 18 month equivalent tariff, when compared to O2. Otherwise the differences are just a matter of pence:

What about data? Pay Monthly data usage is capped at 750Mb per month – in a world of unlimited usage, it’s quite bold of Orange to state a limit. Although they then makes themselves look like prize dicks by still stating usage is unlimited, and then stating the limit alongside:

On Pay As You Go, Orange have capped data usage per month to 250 Mb – that’s compared to O2’s unlimited-but-fair-use policy, which in our experience doesn’t seem to bottom out at 250Mb. Throw in some YouTube action and apps usage, and it’s pretty easy to bust that limit in a month.

The more eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed another curious clause – on both Pay Monthly and Pay As You Go, Orange are capping wi-fi allowance at 750 MB per month. Wi-fi? Presumably they’re referring to hotspots with which Orange partner, but stating such tightly defined data limits is a massive shift in service provider policy.

Orange partners with the likes of BTOpenzone in the UK; presumably it’s access through these wi-fi hotspots Orange are looking to restrict. The same hotspots can be accessed through the iPhone on O2… for free. Um.

Our verdict? There’s no doubt Orange seem to offer more thorough 3G coverage, but all the feedback from our readers suggests O2 will offer better customer service everytime. There’s also this question of data allowance, on both 3G and wi-fi; this may inevitiably be a road that all service providers are forced to walk as demands for data outstrip forecasts, but it’s bizarre that Orange have decided to draw the line in the sand with the iPhone.