Orange's disposable mobile handsets en route

You’ll shortly be able to buy a one-time-use mobile handset complete with pre-installed SIM card with 60 minutes worth of traffic — extendable by top-up vouchers. So reports StrategyEye.

The deal is coming to us courtesy of everybody’s favourite maker of plastic pens, BIC. Yes! The mobile phone is now truly becoming a commodity. Alcatel-Lucent are knocking together the handset with BIC. Orange reckons the handset will retail for around 49 EURO. Or about, what, 35 quid?

The StrategyEye report mentions a possible launch date for the BIC Phone or “BICPhone” in France at the end of this coming summer. No news if we’ll get it in the UK or beyond.

So, disposable handsets? A good idea?

Well they’re already here — the Woolworths shopping chain, for example, routinely sells PAYG handsets for sub £20 pounds. They’re not BIC-pen-disposable though. At least, they’re not meant for that.

Case in point: Get yourself an Alcatel OT-S520 on Virgin for £19.99:

Or browse the best sellers:

Granted, these handsets don’t come with 60 minutes airtime — at best, they usually come with enough for a minute or two’s worth of chatting. It’ll be interesting to see if the BICPhone stands up to the existing PAYG favourites.