GiffGaff Stall on iPhone 5 Nano SIM

20 September 2012

UK virtual mobile network operator GiffGaff announced its plan to support the iPhone 5 on its contract-free SIM only plans: > If all goes well, we hope to have the SIM cards ready for distribution in the coming months.

The vocal GiffGaff community expressed their dissatisfaction, resulting in an several vague, apologetic updates, culminating in this: > The process for delivering the nano SIM on giffgaff was kicked off several weeks ago and is being treated as a high priority, but there are some steps which simply cannot be made faster. For these reasons, at this stage, the company cannot commit to detailed delivery timescales, but we are expecting to launch nano SIMs before the end of this year.

GiffGaff are a wholly owned subsidiary of Telefonica/O2 and rely on the telecommunications giant to provide all of its infrastructure.

GiffGaff behaves in some ways like a “small, lean company”, but they are firmly tethered to the mothership. While it looks like a disruptive upstart in a staid industry, GiffGaff is actually a mechanism for Telefonica/O2 to test out risky ideas on a flexible, responsive segment of the market.

The only reason for GiffGaff not to offer nano SIMs on iPhone 5 launch day is because they have not had the nod from their corporate overlords.

Why would Telefonica/O2 delay offering contract free iPhone 5 plans on GiffGaff? It may be because O2 are the only UK carrier offering prepaid (contract free) nano SIMs on launch day.

That’s a huge differentiator for O2. Given that they don’t have an LTE offering, and won’t have one for the foreseeable future, I suspect they want to hold onto as much of the iPhone 5 market as possible. If that slice of the market has to come from prepaid customers, then O2 will take it.

GiffGaff will get nano SIMs eventually, but only after O2 grab the early prepaid adopters.