Prepaid customers treated as 2nd class customers through denied functionality

[NFH]

Why does O2 treat its prepaid customers as second class customers by deliberately denying them network functionality or by implementing network functionality later for prepaid customers than for postpaid customers?

• Wifi calling
• 4G calling
• eSIM (discussed here)

I don't understand why the availability of network functionality, particularly with no marginal cost to O2, should be affected by whether the customer pays in advance or pays in arrears; the time of payment ought to be a total irrelevance to network functionality. Wifi calling and 4G calling have no marginal cost to O2, whereas eSIM has a potential licensing cost, which is why EE charges £1.50 to its prepaid customers for an eSIM.

One unacceptable consequence is that O2's prepaid customers receive worse coverage and increased battery usage compared to O2's postpaid customers. 4G calling gives coverage for voice calls in the countryside on low frequencies that travel over long distances, and wifi calling allows the receiving (and making) of calls where there's no mobile signal, for example on the Tube, and also causes lower battery usage.

Instead of discriminating between prepaid and postpaid customers, why doesn't O2 much more simply implement network functionality for all customers simultaneously?

[NFH]

Now that EE*, Vodafone and Three all support eSIMs for prepaid customers, this leaves O2 as the only one of the four UK physical networks that still doesn't do so.

The timing of Vodafone's and Three's much delayed eSIM launches this month suggests that the immenent iPhone 12 might have no physical SIM slot and might instead have two eSIMs. However, this theory is countered by leaked photos showing a relocated physical SIM slot.

* My EE PAYG account let me order an eSIM for £1.50 earlier this year but no longer shows this option.

[madasaf1sh]

@NFH

Im sorry, the links you point to are only for activation, none of them mention PAYG, and when you dig deeper, none of them support it: (happy to be proved wrong, please provide links)

EE no longer provide esims to Pay as You go users, and the £1.50 charge applies to all PAYG users for a replacement sim card, there used to be a fudge that no longer works.

Three's website doesn't say what they support and they wont support any secondary devices with esim such as apple watch or galaxy watches from day 1.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/09/three-uk-finally-starts-adding-esim-support-to-website...

Vodafone only support Pay Monthly, no mention anywhere of PAYG :
https://newscentre.vodafone.co.uk/news/esim-support-comes-to-vodafone-uk-smartphones/

The iPhone 12 will come with a sim card slot, unless apple want to kill off a lot of partnerships with mobile networks globally.

[NFH]

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@madasaf1sh wrote:

Vodafone only support Pay Monthly, no mention anywhere of PAYG :
https://newscentre.vodafone.co.uk/news/esim-support-comes-to-vodafone-uk-smartphones/

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If you log into a Vodafone PAYG account, it allows you to swap to an eSIM, even though it's not explicitly stated anywhere that PAYG accounts are supported.

[NFH]

It's almost 8 years since O2 launched TU Go, an app-based predecessor of wifi calling, which was similarly denied to PAYG customers. Does anyone know why, 8 years later, O2 customers still cannot receive calls on their mobile numbers via wifi? What is preventing O2 from allowing its PAYG customers to use wifi calling?

Vodafone launched wifi calling for PAYG customers last month and included PAYG customers within its launch of eSIMs last September. I still don't understand why O2 treats its PAYG customers as second class customers.

[Cleoriff]

@Chris_K  is the one to answer this @NFH 

[Chris_K]

Unfortunately the capability for Wifi Calling on O2 Pay As You Go isn't there at present. We are constantly looking to make improvements on our network and for our customers but this can be difficult with such complex technology, combined with other limitations.

If or when eSIM and/or Wifi Calling capability is enabled on Pay As You Go, we'll of course let customers know.

[NFH]

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@Chris_K wrote:
Unfortunately the capability for Wifi Calling on O2 Pay As You Go isn't there at present.

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Thanks @Chris_K, but what is the technical reason behind this? Did O2 mistakenly make an architectural decision many years ago which now prevents billing-agnostic technology (wifi calling, eSIM, 4G calling) from being deployed equally to customers irrespective of how they pay for their service? Otherwise there's no plausible reason as to why prepaid and postpaid customers do not receive the same technological benefits.