T-Mobile wins iPhone Germany exclusive, paper claims
Vodafone to be the UK provider?
A German newspaper has claimed that Apple's iPhone will be coming to Europe through a deal with local carrier T-Mobile.
The Rheinische Post yesterday said T-Mobile will offer the handset in Germany on 1 November, pricing it at around €450 ($613/£304), though it's not clear whether that's for the 4GB model or the 8GB version.
Equally, the report doesn't address whether the handset will be a 3G model - allegedly the case, according to sources cited in our own report late last week. But it's interesting to note that T-Mobile recently announced plans to upgrade its 3G HSDPA network to deliver download speeds of up to 7.2Mbps - handy if the Euro iPhone is indeed a 3G model.
Indeed, the biggest complaint reviewers have made about the Apple handset is the lack of high-speed cellular connectivity. The US iPhone is limited to AT&T's Edge network, essentially a GPRS speed bump.
Rheinische Post said T-Mobile Germany representatives refused to comment on the matter. Vodafone wouldn't say anything either - it too is fingered as a key European iPhone partner, almost certainly in different territories than T-Mobile.
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Hmmmm I wonder
What would happen if you got an e.g. German iPhone and then tried to use it with a US T-Mobile Sim? might that do the trick?
PNGs
Don't know if the german newspaper article already says this, but apparently the US iPhone already includes the T-Mobile and Vodafone logo graphics in its ROM...
What planet are you on?
Its fairly normal for Networks to pay good money for a period of exclusivity on a new Phone.
Monopoly is rubbish - there are plenty more phones around that do the job.
Get some perspective. Its just another phone at the end of the day.
They will be appearing unlocked on Ebay soon anyway.
Unfair Monopoly?
I can't help but feel that locking consumers into a single operator (Vodafone, T-Mobile, AT&T or otherwise) is promoting an unfair monopoly.
The iPhone is a phone, therefore is should work on any phone network. Artificially restricting it to a single network is unfair to consumers.
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From reading the original (German) article I think the price was the newspaper's guess.
$100 markup seems a bit low, but then the US$ is pretty weak.
Of course US price quotes don't include tax, so if the speculation is correct it would be fair. I'd still be pleasantly surprised.
http://www.onmyiphone.com/
