T-Mobile launches pay-as-you-go Blackberry

T-MOBILE GAVE US a bit of a shock last night by actually launching something rather useful at a bash in a London penthouse - a pay as you go BlackBerry - with free email and Internet usage for a year.

This Pearl 8110 which goes under the new branding Pay Once, costs just £180, not an entirely indecent proposition when the phone has been seen around for £285 with no such niceties bundled in.

What you can actually get from May 1st is this handset with unlimited Internet usage that includes email and instant messaging for that one-off cost. Calls and text messages are an additional fee, which runs off of the firm's Text and Talk tariff at 10p per call/sms with the first two minutes of each day costing 20p.

There is however ‘a rub', which in this case is the fair usage policy of 1GB a month. If a user exceeds this limit nothing is happens, the network admins will just make note, then perhaps write to the awful degenerate and perhaps have some sharp words with them.

T-Mobile is the first to do such an offering, with others bound to take heed and then undoubtedly follow suit. Orange has a pay as you go BlackBerry, but the Internet usage is taken out of the top-up fee.

From the 1st of May this 'Berry will be available in T-Mobile stores online and elsewhere, with the likes of Argos and Littlewoods also taking up the handset deal.

Before you know it, everyone possibly everywhere will be able to be contacted cheaply on email - who says the written word is dead? µ