3 Mobile reveals its iPhone 4 tariffs, cheapest so far

Five down, one to go. Tesco revealed its iPhone 4 tariffs yesterday, and it seems this was enough to persuade 3 Mobile to divulge its own tariffs. Presumably the operator is confident that T-Mobile – the last operator with its cards still face-down – won't be able to undercut it.

3 Mobile's confidence appears to be justified. To take a single tariff as a point of comparison, a 16GB iPhone 4 on 3 with 500 any network minutes, 5000 3-to-3 minutes, and 1GB of data will cost you £99 for the handset and £30 a month. (3 hasn't revealed anything on contract duration, but we can assume all contracts are 24 months for now.)

The closest tariff to this on Vodafone offers 300 minutes and 1GB of data, costing £169 for the handset and £30 a month.

That brings the total cost of 3's offer to £819 with 24,000 minutes (and that's if we decide to be kind to Vodafone and divide the 5000 3-to-3 total by five to reflect the actual value of it to typical 3 users, most of whose friends will be on other networks). Vodafone's equivalent offer, meanwhile, costs £889 with 7200 minutes.

Unfortunately, if you're thinking of going with 3 Mobile it looks like you're in for a little bit of a wait - the iPhone 4 isn't available on launch day (today). It's 'coming soon'.

3 Mobile also offers a PAYG tariff. Both PAYG and monthly tariffs are below.