Tom,

I applaud your enthusiasm for great highlighting great value but I can't help thinking that you may have gotten a little carried away with yourself when claiming that Etisalat's offer is "the cheapest mobile data plan you're likely to see in the Gulf this decade."

99 dirhams for 10GB a month is certainly a great eyeball grabber of a headline but it seems that somebody hasn't bothered to read the fine print which, I'm sorry to say, makes your assertion rather misleading.

Should you have sat own and thoroughly compared the du and Etisalat offers side by side you might have noticed that the fine print tells a very differnt story.

To wit:

Etisalat's offer is, as you have already pointed out, for the iPhone 3G and not the (widely acknowledged to be) vastly superior iPhone 3GS for starters.

I'm curious as to why anybody in their right would suggest snapping up last year's 16GB 3G when you can get a 16GB 3SG from du for less? Yes that's right. It's right there in the fine print, my friend.

There's also the question of choice to consider.

The Etisalat plan binds you to a 12 month contract. That may havebeen the norm for the last year or so but times have moved on. In this day and age I'd love to know why wany rational person would give up their option to switch carriers, or to a better plan whenever one becomes available?

And that you'd be binding yourself to a phone for twelve months that's, let's face it, has already been outdated for 6 months already.

There's (seemingly) cheap, and then there's value. Which one do you honestly think most smartphone shoppers are more interested in?

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the comment. I agree that it is not as simple as Dh99 for an unlimited data plan. But the mere fact that it is being offered at all, even with strings attached, is pretty significant in terms of where the competition is heading.

My reply to your points:

- I don't think the handset pricing of du vs Etisalat is hidden in fine print - both companies have made it very clear - Etisalat's is posted on this entry, and du's is posted in the Shufflegazine summary I linked to. An 8GB iPhone is Dh150 cheaper from du.

- If the 3GS is so vastly superior, then why is du even bothering to sell the inferior (and you claim outdated) iPhone 3G? Why would you offer something like that to your customers?

- I think there is a fairly good number of people who will go for the Etisalat offer to take advantage of the incredibly good plan they are offering. Dh99 for 10GB a month of data plus 125 minutes of calls and 125 SMS messages is an awesome deal, and blows anything else offered by du (or Etisalat) out of the water.

- Re contracts: the majority of iPhones sold worldwide are sold on long-term contracts. Both networks in the UAE are offering the phones without contacts, and that is good for everyone. But plenty of people choose the tradeoff of making a long-term committment in return for a good deal on the handset and plan - and in this case, Etisalat's Dh99 plan is easily the best on the market. Etisalat also offers to give the iPhone away free or at subsidised prices in return for a 12-month contract, something du is not doing - this is a very popular business model around the world.

Hi Tom,

I'd have to admit that Etisalat's GITEX offer is pretty attractive. AED99 for a 12 month contract that gets me an iPhone 3G (which sadly, is sluggish with the latest OS 3.1.2 update), 125 minutes of local minutes and SMS, and 10GB of data.

That said, if people take up this offer now, and get tied into a 12-month contract, how will they upgrade to the 3GS when it is available?

I'd pay AED2575 for an iPhone 3G 16GB that du is selling for AED2099.

Without a contract.

Let's say I get a du Bronze Elite Plan (with monthly commitment of AED100, which is closely comparable to the AED99 monthly fee, just without the 12-month tie-down), and I get 55 minutes of local minutes, 55 SMSs bundled, and 2GB of data bundled.

I don't know about how most other people use their devices, but I'm a pretty heavy user on my smartphone with push email on Gmail, MS Exchange, Google Maps, YouTube, Imeem (streaming music), GoogleTalk, etc and even I struggle to get past 1 GB a month.

Seriously, anyone who's using more than 2GB a month is either using his/her mobile phone as a substitute for home broadband, or is pretty big on BitTorrent -- tethering is one service that hurts the consumer collective since everyone's fighting for the same piece of fibre.

Coming back to the du Elite plan, I'm also getting 55% to 75% credit back on my IDD calls (I'm starting to sound like a du salesman here), and that's a huge savings over what I used to pay Etisalat for the same amount of usage.

Personally, I think the plans are pretty comparable at face value, but after making the switch, I've realized that I end up with a much smaller bill with du (on Twitter, some people claim that their AED1500 monthly average dropped to AED210), mostly due to huge savings on IDD, and based on my current usage patterns, I seriously doubt I'd ever get around to consuming anything more than 2GB, much less 10GB.

Regardless, I can only see consumers benefiting from this competition between du and Etisalat

Competition is always good and I'm always glad to comment. Hopefully it all helps people to make better decisions.

As far as pricing for the 3G model, things are very competitive indeed. And I believe that du decided to offer the 3G simpley to broaden the available choices available to the public.

Interestingly though, according to @dutweets on twitter, 100% of customers who've booked iPhones so far have opted for the 32GB 3GS with du's bronze plan, which seems to suggest that the game has moved on from the 3G model.

As far as I've seen Etisalat haven't unveiled their 3GS procing schemes and plans yet but as it stands, IMO, based on what customers seem to want, there's no copmetition for du's 3GS offers at this point, especialy when you're paying the same amount for a plain old 3G with etisalat.

And of course, while binding carrier agreements are very common, I'd gues that should one have the option to get a phone with no tie-in that the choice would be obvious. But again that's just my opinion of course.

I hope we're seeing the begining if a seismic shift in the smartphone market as a whole here and that well priced unlimited data plans (which are of course unlimited as long as you don't go over 10GB if we're honest but which is more than enough for most stuff short of bittorrent) spread beyond the iPhone to other handsets such as Blackberries and HTC devices on regular plans, but let' see.

I'm sure that you'd agree that more choice is always a good thing!

I think it's great that Etisalat brings out this deal and it is a very good deal but it comes out too late. But I think it's safe to say that many consumers can happily buy the 3G and never miss what's offered in the 3GS and they could even use this iPhone as a modem to replace their DSL plan at home by tethering.

I'm sure if we dig around in numbers and things we can come up with various conclusions about which is better value or not. To me it seems that du's recent announcement of their 3GS offerings, which I think are very attractive, have spurred on some action from Etisalat, and that can only be a good thing.

So great stuff Etisalat, but where are the 3GS details?

And Tom, the simple reason for du selling the iPhone 3G at all is very likely Apple. Look at Apple's lineup, it includes the 8GB 3G.

Magnus - the 3G is still like....the second best smartphone in the world, right? Sure the 3GS runs a little quicker and has some nice extras, but the 3G is still a totally totally excellent phone compared to anything else on the market...

I'd still worry about which is more future proof. I reckon that as the next Apple firmware updates come out folks will start finding that the 3GS handles the heavy lifting alot better - especially if and when Apple enables multitasking, universal cpy and paste and a whole bunch of other up and coming features.

If you're locked to an older phone for 12 months you may well be fine on a 3G but you'd be missing out on the better user experience that the 3GS can provide for sure.

Sure there'll always be a bottom end of the market and it's good to see du and Etisalat fighting it out there but the high end is where the real action is in the coming year, as other vendors such as HTC, Motorola, SonyEricsson , Nokia, LG etc. come out with ever beter phones to take it to the 3GS. Why be left behind? ;)

is all plan have this upfront charge or this is only if u want your mobile to roaming on??? thanks