TeliaSonera nabs iPhone rights for Nordic and Baltic markets
By Thomas Ricker 
posted May 27th 2008 3:25AM
posted May 27th 2008 3:25AM
Ok ok, we hear you tipsters, iPhone now official for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia "later this year" thanks to a deal between Apple and TeliaSonera. At this point, only The Netherlands seems to be out of the loop in Europe.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
What about Romania ? :) We are still in Europe you know :P
im confused.
not that they just became now official in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.... but isn't there a new iPhone coming out in less that two weeks?
i hope so :S i just sold mine
Older EU-countries first! Can't we sue Apple for discrimination of the Dutch (and, ok, Romanian) people?
Who cares about the EU? The continent is called Europe, the EU is just a group of countries.
And I imagine the number of iPhones Apple could sell in Romania is very, very small. The people in Romania that can afford it already have it.
What the hell! Apple why not The Netherlands!?!?!?!
This is insane...
This is Madness!!!
This! is! iphone!!!!
this is iSparta!!!!
This is unacceptapple!!
I see what the four of you just did there.
This is not your father's rotary phone.
Not sure, but what about Belgium? I haven't heard anything about iphone in belgium yet... We do have the capital of europe here ;)
Apparently the iPhone is coming to Belgium as part of a deal with Orange, so that'll be a release by Mobistar when it arrives (http://www.orange.com/en_EN/press/press_releases/cp080516uk.html). For others who have mentioned Romania, you'll note that Orange also bagged a deal for them as well.
So....this doesn't really help me at all.
*Goes back to bed*
there still is no iphone in spain!!!
I've not seen an official announcement about it, but apparently Telefonica have reached a deal to distribute the iPhone in Spain (http://blog.sevenclick.com/2008/05/09/movistar-surrenders-upon-the-king/). While I was able to link to the official Orange announcement (as terse as it was) for the iPhone in other EU countries, I can't see anything official for Spain so take this blog post with a pinch (or fist-full) of salt. Perhaps they are waiting until the announcement of the 3G iPhone itself next month before making the official announcement that it will be distributed in Spain. Still, it seems reasonable to assume that this will happen.
straks, Mobistar is getting iPhone for belgium
horray! i'm from lithuania ^^
Too bad. I was hoping for Telenor as their network has been a bit more stable lately. Guess I'll have to grab a Telia SIM card now...oh wait ;)
Hmmph, Telia. That's the NetCom mobile network in Norway. I'd much prefer Telenor :/
Then again, the contract's only a year anyway ;)
Telenor's communications director said it was unlikely that the iPhone would be exclusive to one provider in Norway, because of the history of how phones have been sold here. I anticipate that Telenor will come with an announcement in not too long
Who cares??
I bought mine some months back, in a US webstore. 600$ including shipping. With the dollar being so low, its about 3200 danish kr witch is faily normal for a good phone here in denmark. It came ready to use, cracked and with newest software version. I inserted my old sim-card and was texting someone within the minute. :-) I works on all the common networks here in Denmark except '3' witch is 3G only.
Good for you... I am certain the rest of us will enjoy HSDPA, AppStore and what other features the second coming of the iPhone will offer.
Excactly André, and schack who cares? ;)
Hopefully it will be the 3G iPhone
The reason for nothing from the Netherlands, Belgium, Romania etc is most likely that Apple hasn't found a phone carrier in those countries willing to offer the iPhone on terms Apple are happy with yet.
Belgium is part of the deal between Orange (france telecom) and apple, in fact Mobistar is getting the exclusive rights to the iPhone in belgium, being that Mobistar is owned by Orange group, however there is the law that prevents carriers to block phones anyone company, so i'd like to see how that is gonna go, maybe they'll just have the exclusivity to SELL the iPhone, cause at the end ALL DEVICES MUST BE UNLOCKED according to belgian law...
Agreed - I'll be interested to see both how the contract will work and how much the phone costs. Having come from the UK, and therefore been used to subsidized phones for little or no money, Belgium's prices for mobile phones came as something of a shock, to the point that I've not bought one here yet. Will the cost of this thing make me fall off my chair in shock? Probably...
@Kelmon, i'm also living in Belgium since 2003 and when i got here i found it kinda crazy that there were no subsidies or anything to make the cost of the phones lower, but, i have to say i grew into it, specially cause i can swap SIM cards on any country that i like while with most of the other phones from america and any other country i lived in before, you had to have the phone hacked or unlocked.. i know prices are very high here like the Nokia N95 at a whooping 750€, but i'd expect no subsidies from Mobistar on the iPhone cause it is purely and simply illegal... i think that as much they'll get to SELL the phone exclusively on their shops for a determined period of time and then HOPE that the people take an iPhone plan with them, give the fact that the device is very data hungry and there are no cheap data plans (at least not unlimited ones) in any of the other carriers in Belgium.. so.. there you go, my vision in a nutshell
well, this practically confirmed the 3G iPhone, as it's illegal for a Finnish mobile operator to sell non-3G phones without a contract...
not trying to be nit picky, but steve jobs himself has already confirmed it from day one of release of the 2.75G model... we just dunno what time this year the 3G will be coming out
It has to be 3G, cos you cannot sell others that are tied to a service in Finland.
The iPhone is coming to Belgium! :
Orange today announced a new agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year.
http://www.orange.com/en_EN/press/press_releases/cp080516uk.html
What about Iceland, last time I checked we are a part of Europe :)
That sounds like a stretch.
And the Faroe Islands? Canary Islands? Cyprus? Luxembourg? Andorra? Lichtenstein? San Marino? The Vatican? Greece?
(That's not even counting the former Eastern Block countries..)
Seems to me that Mr. Thomas Ricker is not exactly up to snuff with his geography. Hrrmph.
BTW why do you need an iPhone on Iceland? I can hear it now:
- Halldor, I gottur meselfur einur iPhonum!
- Heildor, that is greatur! What can you do with ittur?
- I have mappur! I can findum seafoodur in Reykjavikur!
- Seafoodur? Oh Coddur! Greatur! You take it with you on your fishing boatum?
- No, blekfiska -- I mean octopossum! I find calamarium! And I get musikkum at Starbuksum!
- Starbuksum? You mean kaffihousum? We don't have any Starbuksum!
- Oppsan. Maybe this was not so greatum.
Then again, maybe there really IS a huge hidden market for the iPhone on Iceland, and Apple are really losing out big time here. Serves them right for being so restrictive (exclusive deals, no SIM-unlocking, etc..)
-tor
*Norway*
This is the best day ive had in a long time , i work at a phone shop and people comes everyday and asks for the iphone , well i can tell them now to wait a few months and itll be here, i work for NetCom which is a part of Telisonera :D
I hear ya mrbiin! I've never seen so many phones running in jailbreak mode.
And Iceland! They have yet to recieve iPhone:(
IPhone has problem getting to Netherlands because Orange got sold to T-Mobile and soon Orange will not exist any longer in the Netherlands!
iPhone in Slovakia has been announced a couple weeks ago
and bringing it to Austria on orange makes no sense since its here on T-Mobile already :x
also wasn't Austria the one testing the 3G iPhone or something?
There is no iPhone in Luxembourg either, as far as I know. Even though it is possible that it will be coming here through that Vodafone deal. But so far there haven't been any official announcements.
No one cares about Luxembourg (or you don't know it exists)
"No one cares about Luxembourg (or you don't know it exists)"
My sister and brother in law live in Luxembourg. The last time we went the girl and guy checking our bags thought it was a city in Belgium.
I'm not buying an iPhone with Telia. Two of my friends have ongoing consumer cases against Telia. Both to do with billing screw ups.
i like to point out that iceland is a Nordic state and Vodafone Iceland did nabs iPhone rights few moths a go
What is your source on that? While Vodafone (which does not own any part of Vodafone Iceland) announced availability in 10 countries earlier this month, there is no announcement from Vodafone Iceland. (See vodafone.is, etc.)
We want the iPhone in The Netherlands!
hey, at least you have weed
Hopefully Telia is not the only provider in Denmark...