Apple picks O2 for UK, T-Mobile for Germany?
By Ryan Block 
posted July 5th 2007 12:57AM
posted July 5th 2007 12:57AM
Yeah, that's apparently what's going down -- the iPhone will be over the Atlantic "in time for Christmas," according to The Times. That is, assuming they can quickly localise its dialogue for easy manoeuvring in the UK market, aye guv'na? Oh, and Apple still has to sign the paperwork, too, so it isn't necessarily over.P.S. -Naw, doesn't necessarily mean Vodafone is out -- remember, they're so freaking all over the place Apple might just get Vodafone distro somewhere else in the world.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: The piece also notes that Orange is the front-runner in France. As a reminder, German paper Rheinische Post reported that T-Mobile's locked down the iPhone for Deutsche release. Apparently it'll land for €450 (about $612) on November 1st. More as it develops. Congratulations, Europe, now you too can experience absolutely insane consumer hysteria that is an iPhone launch! Thanks, Chinman.
UK: O2
Germany: T-Mobile
France: Orange
What will happen in Spain? O2 is a partner of Telefonica but we have Orange here to.. and I still hope Vodafone will get the deal.
Excellent news. In my opinion, O2 and ORange are the best networks in the UK, so both will suit me down to the ground. I'm just wondering how Apple would bypass the UK unlocking law, as I imagine they want to.
I bet that as soon the iPhone will land in EU it will get hacked for all sim cards... at least for that.
Guys, just because a phone has to be unlocked it doesn;t mean you aren't liable for your contract payments. I can get my Vario II unlocked from T-Mobile if I want and use it on Orange, but I'd still owe T-Mobile another 8 months worth of payments!
Not keen on O2, their price plans are horendous as soon as you attempt to add data. The only network with a decent data plan is T-Mobile with their £7.50 unlimited plan with a 2GB fair use policy.
Count me down as another against Jobs picking O2 for the UK. Funnily enough, I'm an existing O2 customer, but I'm only hanging on with them because I'm past my contract obligation period and now just waiting to find out who is getting the iPhone in the UK.
I received an O2 customer service call yesterday (receive quite a few of these now that my contract isn't locked-in) and the rep. offered a flat-fee data bolt on pack for £45!?! I told him that I could get a flat-rate fair usage policy from T-Mobile for £12.50, but there wasn't anything they could do. Oh, but I could get 5mb for £15 - bargain......Fingers crossed for T-Mobile then.
With the US iPhones they already come with a sim with 3G on written on the sim do you think the iphones for Europe and Asia-Pacific will be identical to the US handsets and Apple will just simply pipe a Update through iTunes??
Yes, and with the update there will also float a 3G chipset magicly through the air that will solder itself on to your iPhone.
I suspect Apple is just trying to keep good relationships with all the various huge mega-providers worldwide. So basically everyone is getting in on a little bit of the action. Obviously this keeps competition down better than the other way to do this, which would just be to offer the phone to Orange, Vodafone, and O2 in the same country.
Pretty clever move actually, since I'm sure the phone companies would rather have a lock on the iPhone in a few countries rather than having to compete in all their territories.
I'm moving to France :(
They'll probably sell it unlocked, but with o2, you never know.
Aside from that, I'm surprised they're thinking about shipping it to France and Germany, when Italy has a much bigger mobile phone market than these two countries (and they're allowed to sell locked phones btw)
Just a thought. The UK 3G licence holders have to cover 70% of the population by Decmeber 31st 2007 in order to comply with their licences (the ones they paid £22 billion for). WCDMA cells 'breath' i.e. they get physically bigger and smaller as the amount of traffic on them increases. I happen to knwo that o2 have pretty much stopped rolling out any new 3G sites and are touch and go when it comes to their population coverage. Do they really need a load of neards like me using up all of their bandwidth in Q4 2007 watching You Tube videos on their iPhones?
Shouldn't be a problem if all the iPhones are on their EDGE network instead.
O2 dont have EDGE, only Orange in the UK, guess well be stuck with GPRS..
Interesting. As you probably saw above, I was under the impression that EDGE was actually fairly widespread, if little talked about.
It seems that the iPhone will not be available in Italy since the 2008. Having one of the biggest and most reliable G3 and G2.5 network in Europe and being Italy the 4th market in the world for mobile phone against population I believe this is a big mistake.
This announcement will be taken seriously by the italian Apple Community and, to me, will seriously delay the spread of Apple products in the national market.
Bad call guys...
Anyway, I'm a Nokia person...
Mac users are not supported in O2 billing system - This is somewhat worrying, I had this from O2 this morning when trying to view my bill on there website i wrote them and got this reply -
"You're unable to view your bills because our website doesn't support the Macintosh computer.
Please try to view your bill on a computer that has Windows. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused and thank you for your patience."
If I was from Apple and in discussions with them I would tell em to get out door.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=abO7i.hUUOps&refer=uk
" July 5 (Bloomberg) -- Telefonica SA's O2 wireless unit said it hasn't signed a deal with Apple Inc. to be the exclusive U.K. network partner for the iPhone mobile device.
``No deal has been signed with Apple,'' O2 spokesman David Nicholas said today by telephone from London. ``We don't comment on rumor or speculation.''
The response comes after the Financial Times, citing people close to the talks, reported that O2 is close to a deal to be the exclusive network provider for the iPhone in the U.K. The O2 deal is a blow to Newbury, England-based Vodafone Group Plc, the world's largest mobile operator, which was seen as the frontrunner for the contract, the Daily Telegraph reported. "...
Damn you financial times for hurting my stock!
3G? Get with the times. HSDPA is rolling out (certainly where I live). If the iPhone is only 3G and is launched for December it will be like all the other Mac products - too little,too late and only the fanboy club will buy it (at any price as they do with every other Apple product).
I bought the iPhone the first day it came out in Reno, NV. I flew to the UK 2 days ago and brought my iPhone. I turned it on in Gatwick Airport and it immediately connected to O2. I guess I am roaming. I have been able to send and receive text messages and all my email. If I wanted to, I could have connected to any wireless hotspot.
Now I am in Italy. The iPhone immediately connected to the vodaphone network. I am able to receive text messages and not send them. What does everyone think?
Andrew
I really, really hope that this turns out to be wrong. I was with O2 for 9 years through numerous name changes and finally got round to moving away from them because of their poor customer service, noncompetitive pricing and almost non existent data plans. Getting the iphone would leave us with extortionately expensive data plans :(
I have been watching this for the past few days. Until yesterday, everyone thought Vodafone was a lock, perhaps for most/all of Europe. However, the earlier rumor/news about T-mobile getting the contract for Germany along with this latest rumor/news about O2 suggests Vodafone, whose biggest strength was the breadth of their subscriber base across Europe.
It also suggests that Apple's European carrier strategy is similar to their US carrier strategy of partnering with someone they can exert more leverage over, which gives them more strength in negotiations to extract things like a share of services revenue. Given Vodafone's reach, they might have thought they had more leverage with Apple than they apparently did.
As for the 2.5G vs 3G issue. I understand that T-mobile, and perhaps other European carriers actually have fairly widespread, and fairly new, EDGE networks in addition to the even newer 3G UTMS networks, so a EDGE iPhone sounds like it would work as well in Europe as it does in the US. That would probably explain why the current iPhone is Quad-band too.
Anyone know more about the relative state of EDGE vs 3G networks in England, Germany & France?
Only Orange have EDGE in the UK, there is no real need for it since when they were implementing GPRS they were also buying 3G licenses. I don't know about other EU states but imagine the situation is similar.
I can only talk about the UK...
Vodafone: No EDGE, very good HSDPA/UMTS network
T-Mobile: Very very little EDGE, very good HSDPA/UMTS network
Orange: Patchy EDGE coverage, average UMTS network
O2: No EDGE, reasonable UMTS network
3: No EDGE, very good UMTS network
If the iPhone is only going to support GPRS/EDGE, Orange would be the logical choice in the UK. But when you've got decent HSDPA coverage running at ten times the speed of EDGE, Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot by releasing an EDGE-only iPhone in the UK.
Thanks, Marty & xbit!
o2 in ireland sells all apples stuff macbooks & ipod o2 wouldnt surprise me
I have been watching this for the past few days. Until yesterday, everyone thought Vodafone was a lock, perhaps for most/all of Europe. However, the earlier rumor/news about T-mobile getting the contract for Germany along with this latest rumor/news about O2 suggests Vodafone, whose biggest strength was the breadth of their subscriber base across Europe.
It also suggests that Apple's European carrier strategy is similar to their US carrier strategy of partnering with someone they can exert more leverage over, which gives them more strength in negotiations to extract things like a share of services revenue. Given Vodafone's reach, they might have thought they had more leverage with Apple than they apparently did.
As for the 2.5G vs 3G issue. I understand that T-mobile, and perhaps other European carriers actually have fairly widespread, and fairly new, EDGE networks in addition to the even newer 3G UTMS networks, so a EDGE iPhone sounds like it would work as well in Europe as it does in the US. That would probably explain why the current iPhone is Quad-band too.
Anyone know more about the relative state of EDGE vs 3G networks in England, Germany & France?
I think this is horrible news as you may travel to other countries and have to pay loads to use your phone in Roaming mode, etc... It'd much better to be able to have a Europe-wide carrier. I just hope they select Orange in Spain as they're so much less expensive than Vodafone!!!
What about canada guys? Seriously every time a cool gadget comes out... we get screwed all the way! Haven't you heard anything about us poor canadian? I know I might sound like an apple fanboy but i'm seriously considering piking up a plan with At&t... I went over to a Rogers store the other day and for 140$ canadian (or 133 USD) I get unlimited evening and week-ends + 400 minutes during the day, a voicemail box, no sms plan and 25 meg of download! Seriously what is wrong with canadian providers?
just a though I had on this... Maybe Rogers are being snoby at apple because they want an affordable unlimited plan for the iPhone! I remember back when rogers bought Fido, they removed all the unlimited plans fido had! What do you think?
Bring out the iPhone on Orange at least that way you get by 1 get 1 free on a wednesday for the movies and maybe throw in a working xbox 360 im fed of sending it back.
Bring the iPhone on Orange and ill buy one on launch day.
I really hope Apple decide on Vodafone, network coverage is by far the best of all the networks, they have an ok data plan (£7.50 = 120mb), though not as good as T-Mobile's data plan.
3G coverage is pretty decent too on Vodafone, I think I could settle with Orange if they decided that way but I think it is unlikely as I don't think they have a proper data plan.
O2 would be a really bad choice as their lack of a decent data plan as already mentioned by people plus their 3G/Edge/Network coverage isn't as good as Vodafone or Orange. T-Mobile is appauling where I live but is cheap, though i'd rather pay a little bit extra and get good reception to be honest.
My Vodafone contract is almost up and i'm waiting to see who Apple will definatly choice before I sign anything else, I hope Apple will sell unlocked iPhones so I can just put a Vodafone sim card in.
Any word on who will provide service for the iPhone in Ireland (Republic)?
Australia does not deserve the iPhone. As an australian living in europe, I sneer at your (my) remote, overtaxed, under serviced english mining colony, and hope you never get it. It wouldn't be fair. You have steak and fish. You have a hole in the ozone layer. What more do you want?
Hey, nobody has said anything about the impending iPhone release in Irark. What is that about? It is a prerequisite for a modern democracy, surely? And, also, does Putin have one? Cause you know he wants one so bad.
As for this talk of EU laws, if the EU laws kill the release of the iPhone before christmas I am gonna sue the son of a bitch papist freak responsible.
Why bother with exclusive networks!
Put it on more than one so we get competitive prices!