3G iPhone confirmed in Italy without revenue sharing?
By Thomas Ricker 
posted April 21st 2008 5:51AM
posted April 21st 2008 5:51AM
We've been avoiding the 3G iPhone rumor mongering as much as possible recently. After all, we know it's coming as both AT&T and Apple have confirmed. Now this: one of Italy's most respected newspapers, La Repubblica (like the WSJ with red sauce), is claiming in no uncertain terms that the 3G iPhone is coming shortly to Telecom Italia without a revenue sharing deal and without long-term exclusivity. If true, this change in strategy opens the doors for a true, global, 3G iPhone launch on UMTS networks around the world come summer time.We contacted Telecom Italia who refuse to comment on the matter.
[Thanks, jimbojambo and Claudio]
I just gotta say this...
"3G iPhone confirmed in Italy without revenue sharing?"
This sentence is such a paradox. "Confirmed" yet having a question mark.
What I want to know:
When will the iPhone support more Bluetooth profiles? DUN, PAN, FTP (as both a client and a server), HDI and SPP (for keyboards)
And the same goes for the iPod Touch (HDI, SPP, FTP definitely, but also DUN/PAN as a client to your phone, iPhone or not).
And, while I'm ranting about Apple Bluetooth support, lets see Bluetooth with FTP on the iPod Classic (so you can use it as a wireless music/storage repository for your iPhone or iPod Touch).
i wanna know why the hell Canada doesn't have the iphone yet. sure we can go for a short drive to the usa (90% of canadians live within 100km of the usa border) buy one, jail break, give it a rogers sim card....but wtf. its been over a year, no?
Four letters, Apple: CDMA
How about EV-DO? Which requires CDMA, of course, but that's just coincidence.
AT&T's 3G coverage in the suburbs and smaller cities is borderline pathetic compared to Verizon's EV-DO. Sure 3G is theoretically faster, but in practice, for high speed data, Verizon is the one with "more bars in more places". Even though they're evil.
Some other news out today about the 3G iPhone. It claims that Apple will release it in May then release a new device at WWDC
3G iPhone in May, new mobile device at WWDC 2008?
http://switchtoamac.com/site/3g-iphone-in-may-new-mobile-device-at-wwdc-2008.html
I wonder how this relates (if at all) to this Italy news.
In the US the only national carriers that would support the iPhone in its most likely configuration would be T-Mobile and AT&T right? That is of course assuming that it would be non-exclusive.
I'm italian and I live in Italy. I read the article but I don't believe what the author wrote. If you read it you will find some ridicolous considerations.
That article is only a sum of rumours and author's fantasy. In Italy there were rumours in January about an imminent 3G iPhone with Vodafone (false), in march there were rumours about an imminent arrive of the present iPhone with Telecom Italia (false) and now more science-fiction rumours.
The article was written on "Repubblica", an italian newspaper not very reliable and usually those type of italian journalists know very little about tecnology.
If it were true an unlocked iPhone will cost about the one already sold in France: 749€ for the 8GB!!! Italians spend a lot for mobile phones but we are not completely crazy. Almost no-one would buy one, we would take a low-cost flight to London and with the super euro we can buy a 8GB iPhone for 340 € and unlock with Ziphone as we already do.
As far as revenue sharing and backpacking onto a carrier is concerned, I've seen the 16GB iPhone for sale in Kuwait's Algahnim stores for several weeks now. That also includes the AirBook and iTouch for that matter... Seems like Jobs is making deals or a bonafide retailer is selling jailbroke iPhone’s now...
The particular iPhone in question goes for 311 Kuwaiti Dinar (KD) or $1145... What a steal!
But is it possible the 3G iPhone will be released BEFORE WWDC in June?????
No.
Hi everyone. If you are interested I tranlsated the original article from italian to (a sort of) english. Enjoy:
The cellphone right now in the UMTS version.
There will be no ‘revenue sharing’, neither the exclusive: an advantage of at least 6 months for Bernabè’s group.
The iPhone arrives in Italy Telecom already signed
They convinced Jobs to change the strategy that brought the cellphone to success.
No exclusive agreements and no shares on the traffic generated by users.
Franco Bernabè himself arrived for the signature: in these days he was in the USA for the presentation of his ‘new’ Telecom Italia. On the 31st of march he was in NY, right after he flew towards the west coast. Official destination: Los Angeles, with a brief stop in Cupertino, Apple’s headquarter. Steve Jobs was really strict about this: accords are signed in the head offices and at the highest level. Anyway it has been quick, because everything was ready for the signature that will bring the iPhone to Italy in a few weeks. The accord is the result of a work of months done by Luca Luciani, Tim’s number one: it’s him that convinced Steve Jobs to change strategy.
The accord is revolutionary because it marks a sudden and important breakthrough in the strategies of the Apple group. That’s why it has been kept secret, so much that even now we are talking about rumors and unofficial news. Revolutionary because it is with Telecom Italia, to enter the italian market, that Steve Jobs would abandon the formula upon which he built the success of his super-phone: exclusive accords, a single carrier for each market, and the ‘revenue sharing’, thanks to which Jobs earns a percentage , that is quite high because it is about 30%, on all the traffic generated by the iPhone users.
The main points of the accord should be the following:
1) No old 2G iPhones on the italian market, but directly the new third generation ones: UMTS iPhones that will exploit at best the great potentials of the italian wide band networks.
2) No ‘revenue sharing’: no percentages on the traffic, but a higher price for the device. Quite a lot higher.
3) Finally, no exclusive with Telecom Italia but only an advantage of some months granted to Franco Bernabè’s group. An advantage that already exists in facts: Telecom’s technologic and commercial networks are right now ready for the iPhone. When it will be official that the italian iPhones will not be a Tim’s exclusive, a second operator would take some time to get ready to support the device. To be more specific: H3G or Vodafone, probably the first operators to take advantage of the lack of exclusive, will need to work a lot and fast if they want to bring their iPhones on the market in time for Christmas 2008. On summer 2008 only Tim will be there.
On a first impression it could seem a strange accord. Telecom Italia has lots of advantages: it is the first to get the iPhone, and at a cost that is way lower than the one paid by all the other carriers that already have the device. So: why did Jobs accept all this?
The ability of the iPhone to sell a lot is proven. The numbers are impressive. For example in the USA, the first market iPhone appeared a year ago, it seems that AT&T already sold 3 millions units, 1 million only in the last 3 months. Even more impressive is that less than half of these 3 millions were activated by new users that left their old carrier and switched to AT&T only to get the iPhone.
So, which reasons convinced Jobs to abandon the old ‘revenue sharing’ strategy?
The answer is that this formula cannot last much more time.
Market is changing. Mobile telephony all around the world is rapidly moving towards Internet. This means that the rich part of the mobile phone business will not be voice, that will become less and less expensive, but data. Not a basic flow of bits, but advanced paid services. The profit system of mobile telephony will be, in a few years, divided in three parts. First, the fixed monthly fees for voice and simple data connection. This money goes directly to the carriers for the access to the network, and its amount will continue to decrease. Second, the money the users pay for premium services. Typical example: music download. But also news, video, new generation services like remote controls via cellphone, and so on. This part of the money will go to the service providers. Finally there will be a third part related to search engines, social networking, maps and informations like the yellow pages. These services will be free for the user but will produce earnings through advertisement. It is on this last kind of services that the competition is open between Telecom, the service providers, and who will be able to manage all this traffic, that is, companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Ericsson that own the “network intelligence”.
In synthesis: the business generated by mobile telephone will grow, but it will disappear from the phone bills, that is where Jobs is now getting his shares.
So Jobs understood that the the iPhone reached its peak as a product. Also because the advantage granted by the ‘touch’ technology and Apple’s historical know-how is about to be filled by the competitors. Both Samsung and HTC already presented their smartphones without keyboard and with a ‘touch’ interface. An even if the first models won’t be able to compete with Apple’s iPhone, you can bet that in one or two versions the gap will be filled.
Maybe they will even go further. And, by the way, next fall the Nokia ironclad will present its first ‘touch screen’ right in time for Christmas 2008.
So, Steve Jobs has a nice successful product in his hands. But how to avoid to end up like Motorola, that was not able to recover in time from the worldwide success of its Razr (right now still best selling cellphone at all) and because of this passed in 12 months from the stars to nearly bankrupt. Change is needed. But how?
The iPhone is not a wideband telephone. It is still good for markets in which the wideband mobile network is still not fully developed. Like the USA. And, in Europe, actually everywhere but Italy. The percentage of UMTS users for the main carrier in each european market is clear: 20% in France, 18% in the UK, only 15% in Spain. In Italy it is 44%, almost one every two.
In markets still not fully developed from that point of view, the iPhone has brought to the carriers mainly a strong increase in internet browsing. This is even clearer in markets still dominated by the voice traffic, like the US one. Its user friendliness, both for browsing and buying online products like music and video thanks to the synergy with iTunes, made it a beautiful tool to introduce users to mobile internet. But going towards 3G things get more complicated. And competition grows.
Jobs found himself dealing with Telecom Italia and for the first time he could not sell the ability of the iPhone to generate paid data traffic: Tim without the iPhone has already registered an increase of 90% in mobile browsing. That is: the advantage generated by competition on the italian mobile market still works.
On the other hand Jobs has in his hands a still underestimated tool: a browser. The iPhone’s heart is the software that enables internet browsing called Safari. From the USA arrives another incredible number: 70% of accesses to the mobile network is registered from smartphones with the Safari browser, that is iPhone.
And browsers are the new frontier of this market. It’s not by chance that in this field is working Google itself with Android. It is suddenly clear for Jobs that the new goal is not to sell few iPhones at at the highest price (accounting also the shares) but to spread Safari as much as possible. Accindentally by selling more cellphones thanks to the new non-exclusive accords.
And Telecom Italia was in the right place at the right time.
that is actually a very insightful article, whether accurate or not. I did not imagine how much 3G had penetrated the Italian market.
So, does anyone else think that this first iPhone was basically a beta test to see if people will buy an Apple cell phone? From hearing all these rumors about the price being cut in half through AT&T with a new 2-year contract (probably because they're tired of losing so many customers to unlocking) and now this no revenue-sharing business, seems to me that Apple wanted a limited base of tech savvy customers to purchase the first "beta" iPhone in order to get worthwhile feedback. Basically everything software-related that users have been demanding in a new iPhone is going to be implimented in the new firmware update (although still no word on cut and paste *cough bs cough*), plus the rumors that hardware demands are being answered (even blogs about the battery being removable, I personally took my iPhone to the Apple store because of battery issues and they just gave me a new one, I'm sure they'd rather sell the replaceable batteries themselves to cut back on how insanely crowded Apple stores are and how long you have to wait to get a genius bar appointment, I live in Houston btw) all point to the fact that this was basically a beta release. Or I may just be overthinking this.