O2 urges rivals to stop providing chargers with new phones

[danrok]

Network says 82% of customers who bought charger-free HTC One X+ did not buy a separate charger.

O2 believes there could be 100m unused chargers in people's homes and offices, enough to fill four Olympic-sized swimming pools if thrown away.

Story: O2 urges rivals to stop providing chargers with new phones | Environment | guardian.co.uk

[Daniel ~]

"The lesson for the industry from this pilot is that consumers are very receptive to the message that they can benefit the environment by avoiding the needless purchase of chargers. I would now like to see others taking similar steps, working with us as we aim to ensure all our handsets are sold charger-free by 2015."

From your mouth to gods ear.

[Aedan]

Or, we can charge the same for a phone without a charger as we can for a phone without a charger, then we can charge for the charger too.

That said, it does make sense to have a standardized charger, rather than having everyone having their own standard as has been in the past. USB makes sense, as it's pretty ubiquitous at the moment, although I don't know how that will change in the future.

[Gizmo]

Aedan's right, this isn't about saving the environment; this is about spinning a way to make customers pay more. They aren't going to lower the cost of the phone.

[Daniel ~]

I hear you and the disingenuous may kill us yet, but it's hard to question the motives of someone pulling you from the fire....even if they only wanted to get you out of their way....":O}

But hard or no it should be done, I guess I was just feeling a bit sappy and wanted for a moment to believe the best... Thanks for dragging me back into my personal hell...LOL

[Aedan]

On the other hand, I suspect that less people will buy a charger from an O2 store - preferring to go elsewhere to purchase one as it might be cheaper. And if you already have a device that has a USB charger, it can be helpful not to have yet another USB charger (I already have too many!).