O2 is launching a flat-rate tariff on 1 October - sort of. Costing £7.50 a month, the bolt-on is being called unlimited, but in fact is capped at just 200MB.

The launch was widely predicted, but the low cap comes as something of a surprise when the competition (3 UK) is offering a 1GB cap for £5 a month, though it is better than Vodafone's limp 120MB cap on its £7.50 a month service.

If you really want more data (O2 reckons only a laptop user would do that), you can get O2's Web Max which caps out at 3GB, but will set you back £30 a month.

Quite how both Bolt Ons can be described as "unlimited" when the only difference between them is their limits and the price, pushes marketing speak to a new low. But O2 points out that the caps are fair-use, and exceeding that will just result in a stern warning from O2.

BlackBerry users get their own "unlimited! special tariff at £10 a month, which includes pushed email and 200MB of web browsing. ®

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