Another O2 Exclusive … Is Choice Dead Yet?

O2 have done it again, securing rights to much vaunted handset at the expense of their competitors. With both the iPhone and the Pre now in the O2 stable one has to ask whether these exclusivity deals are good for the market and more importantly good for the customer.

If we look at the iPhone we can see that prices are relatively high when compared with other handsets and of course there is no incentive to bring them down since no other network is offering the iPhone. Will the same be true of the Palm Pre? I’m not so sure that the prices will be as high as the iPhone or that there will be special tariffs, but in essence O2 can set what price it likes safe in the knowledge that customers have no other option than to sign up with them.

It’s this lack of competition that troubles me. Giving any one network exclusivity on handsets, especially high profile handsets, imbalances the market so as to reduce the amount of choice presented to customers. Let’s see how well O2 do with the iPhone or the Pre if it were also being sold by the other networks in Britain. Would the pricing remain so high? I doubt it. Not when customers can vote with their wallets.

There seems to be no respect for the customer in any of this, it’s simple which network can grab the most customers and hold onto them for as long as possible whilst taking the most money from them. I’m not so naive as to not realise that essentially that’s how the networks work anyway, but at least where a network doesn’t have a monopoly on a device or service they have to actually compete and work to win customers, not simply expect them to fall into their lap. It’s that arrogance that does the real damage, safe in the knowledge that they are protected in their monopolistic ivory tower the network can gouge to its heart’s content.

One of the things I’ve always loved about GSM is the ability to take a device and use it on any network. This is why I have always believed that handsets should be unlocked and indeed it’s high time we had regulations to that effect in the UK. The mobile networks shouldn’t be there to dictate policy to the customer rather it should be the customer, through their spending choices, that dictate policy to the networks. Sadly for the customer, with the likes of O2 hoovering up handsets that ability to influence and to ultimately help ensure better deals is steadily diminishing.