Is O2 Lost in Translation?

It’s interesting and a bit frightening to see how different national subsidiaries of O2 say different things about the same topic at the same time. On January 14th, O2 U.K. reports the introduction of new data roaming charges in the second quarter 2008: For a monthly fee of €50 you get 50 MB worth of data while roaming. Nothing I would loose my breath over since for notebook use that is way too little for too way too much. The same press report says:

"The package is available now in Spain, the UK, the Czech Republic and
Ireland and will be introduced in Germany in the second quarter of 2008."

On the same day, O2 Germany also publishes a press report which says that in the second quarter of 2008, they will introduce a cap at €17.50 a day for international data roaming. Now this is quite interesting as it comes close to Vodafone’s websession offer and might even be better since it sounds like they are not limited to a single roaming partner per country. Thus, the user may just be able to pick the best available network while roaming. No word on the 50 for 50 offer though.

What I don’t quite understand is:

  • Why not now and only in the second quarter?
  • Why €50.- for 50 MB per month for customers in the U.K. and €17.50 cap a day for (unlimited?) use for customers in Germany?

Hm, second quarter…. Enough time to come up with highly entertaining T&C’s until then.