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The Mobile Today website claims Carphone Warehouse is set to follow, however, the company refused to confirm the report.

The move will undoubtedly fuel speculation that vendors are clearing stocks to make way for the widely anticipated 3G iPhone, expected in June.

Other commentators suggest it could be an aggressive attempt to bolster unconvincing sales of the device in order to meet sales targets.

O2 refused to comment on the specific reasons for the

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price cut, preferring to repeat the party line that the iPhone has been extremely succesful and the price cut was aimed at continuing that success.

The 16GB iPhone will remain priced at £329.

Intriguingly, on the same day the 3G iPhone rumours begin to fly O2 has responded to customer complaints about its 3G speeds by announcing it had been capping its 3G service - but by accident, rather than design.

"The vast majority of our 3G customers are able to access the internet on their mobile device at speeds of up to 384Kb/sec or typically up to 1.3Mb/secs if they have an HSDPA-enabled device," says a statement from the company.

"The O2 network is fully HSDPA-enabled and we will be further increasing the maximum speeds available on HSDPA throughout the year, up to 7.2Mb/sec. Because of a provisioning error, which came to our attention last week, a small proportion of our 3G customers have not been getting these higher speeds. We apologise to those customers who were affected. The issue is simple to fix and we will be doing so this week."