Orange's iPhone exclusive ruled illegal in France
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Dec 17th 2008 8:19AM
posted Dec 17th 2008 8:19AM
[Thanks, Tieum and Nick]
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Good on them. Now only if this would spread to the rest of the world.
come to australia!
optus,
vodafone,
telstra
...
take your pick!
That's what happens when the American market crappy monopoly games meet the heart of Socialism in Europe.
Lets see now. An exclusivity deal encourages other phone networks AND manufacturers to make better phones so they can compete with the exclusivity deal.
Now that all the networks can sell the "best phone" they lose some of their incentive to encourage manufactures to make better phones.
Oh well.
Socialism in europe? This isn't the 70's, get a new calendar.
Another newsflash (also usable by journalists): The soviet union is gone too.
I for one think this is total BS... I'm no apple fan boy, I don't even own any apple products, but I think the whole premise is just whack. If I work my butt off to create a new product that lots of people like, why in the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks should the government be able to tell me WHO I can sell it to? My product, I made it, I'll sell it (or not) to ANYONE I dang well please.
@Eskimopie
Way to judge every culture in the world by your culture's standards. How very ethnocentric of you.
The entire world is not capitalist. In fact, much of the world finds capitalism to be greedy and fundamentaly flawed.
There system dictates the government is fully within their rights to void any practice they find to be contrary to the good of the public. They are socialist and they can say that word without implying some sort of evil.
Btw.....the government isn't telling Apple who they can and cannot sell too. They are telling Apple they cannot use the French government to FORCE other carriers to NOT sell iPhones. Quite honestly, that sounds more "free" than our system in the U.S.A.
And to others that say this stifles competition....
HOW? The fact that all carriers can sell a phone means more saturation which means other phones makers should be MORE afraid of Apple and should have more incentive to hurry up and come out with better products.
Honestly people......
l2perspective
What deberste said
and "My product, I made it, I'll sell it (or not) to ANYONE I dang well please. "
You do realize that apple doesnt really sell their phones in the US right? The alliance with att means they are selling only to att customers, which in someways can be looked at as discrimination toward any none att user. Im just saying...
@Derbeste
Why are you calling him ethnocentric? He never said that France, or French culture was bad. he simply said he didn't agree with the practice of someone else telling you how you can sell your product. I don't see him "judging" any specific country or culture.
eth⋅no⋅cen⋅trism /ˌɛθnoʊˈsɛntrɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [eth-noh-sen-triz-uhm] Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. Sociology. the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture.
2. a tendency to view alien groups or cultures from the perspective of one's own.
- www.dictionary.com -
I know the fucking meaning of ethnocentrism dumbass. Where in this post do you see anything hating on France or its government?
"I for one think this is total BS... I'm no apple fan boy, I don't even own any apple products, but I think the whole premise is just whack. If I work my butt off to create a new product that lots of people like, why in the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks should the government be able to tell me WHO I can sell it to? My product, I made it, I'll sell it (or not) to ANYONE I dang well please."
The only reference is to "the government" and that is probably referring to governments in general, not Frances. I fail to see any ethnocentrism in this post. I will add something ethnocentric of my own though. I guess all French are shitheads who don't know how to read.
so iphone just went from 199$ to 754$ in france,yeah freedom,thanx dumb ass judge ,he just po'd cuz lance armstrong dominated their stinky asses for 7-8 years in tour defrance.instead they should enforce mandatory daily french showering n dental check ups.,not to mention most features apps wont work with non orange euro providers,he's doing them a disservice.,.,
@DerBeste: I think the ruling doesn't go far enough. The whole ecosystem whereby operators control the handsets on their network needs to be broken up. There are three different business transactions: Buying a phone, financing the phone, and entering into a contract with an operator. Right now, they are all muddled together in a non-transparent way which ends up benefitting the operators and no-one else - operators control phone prices, financing (via "subsidies"), and contract (which contains hidden fees to cover the subsidy).
The best thing for customers would be to have free choice of phone, financing, and contract. They should be able to buy the phone from a vendor at the corner, get financing from somebody else, and the contract from any operator they choose. Operators should be allowed to offer all this too, like they do now, but should be forced to separate out prices for the subsidy, and made to offer the same contract without subsidy. A contract should have a price for the service, and a price for the subsidy, transparently marked. Your $49/month contract consists of a $29/month service fee and a $20 subsidy for your iPhone. And you should have the option to get the same contract without the subsidy if you bring your own phone.
What Apple has done is go to new extremes with the bundling deals, but they didn't invent the concept.
James, I am in Australia. I'm on Optus, and the reception is just awful. Telstra and Vodafone's plans are terribly priced, and 3, the only one offering reasonable prices and good coverage hasn't got a deal with Apple. Yes, this still needs to spread to Australia.
@charlie-
"Now that all the networks can sell the "best phone" they lose some of their incentive to encourage manufactures to make better phones."
But they DO make better phones; they just don't want to sell overseas. Why else would Europe have, for example, the C902 from SE instead of the nice SO905iCS that Japan got from SE with 3x optical zoom, face detection, a DSLR-quality sensor, and all that nice stuff? SE doesn't want to sell it; any carrier would want to have the "honor" of exclusively selling a phone with specs like that!
Those crazy French and their crazy weird lawmakin'. Although I don't see why Apple just don't go ahead and make that there iPhone for everyone's network. Oh wait then they would be like Microsoft what with the huge overwhelming dominance in the phone industry edging on Monopolistic at times making money hand over fist...yeah that's not a good idea at all. Meh that new Moto hawtness a few stories down will ease mah jealousy when they come out.
And it's better like this... not selling enough, not selling right, and not working too well for the businesses.
So does this make France the new California?
Now, if only they would do the same in the UK for the iPhone on O2 and the G1 on Tmobile!
Screw that, I'm moving to France! :P
apparently the Iphone will eventually be available on Vodafone, but as for the G1 i don't know.
I always thought that all this exclusivity sounded totally illegal, its nice to see some action being taken against monopoly
The problem I have is with the sim lock, which limits the product. I think if I make a phone I should be able to sell it to whoever I like, but equally that whoever buys should be able to do whatever they like with it.
So I disagree with this particular French law.
In the uk, the simlock is illegal - shame that the system means they can charge an "admin fee" and you have to ask them to unlock it. So noone does.
They should bring out Jobs into the street and give him a beating / bag of hurt
1/ for ignoring copy and paste
2/ being so 'locked in' to carriers
3/ it'd do him some good
I'll give you a bag of hurt... (Why, oh, whhhhy do you all keep setting yourselves up for that one?)
First the french complained it was locked...
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/17/orange-to-sell-unlocked-iphone-in-france/
Now they complain about providers... and they get things done!
It's like V (for vendetta) said...
People should not be affraid of manufacturers, manufacturers should be affraid of them. Or something like that...
And no it's not going to spread... no one else has the balls or the stamina to take the fight to Apple.
I don't think it has anything to do with balls. If I had the money and the high priced legal team I would be takin' it to those bastards, but sadly I don't. If given the opportunity I would also punch El Jobso in the ovary.
That was the worst V for Vendetta reference I've ever seen.
You know, just do a facepalm.
Right now.
That was horrid.
/Facepalm
I, for one, welcome "fireworks" at the Eiffel Tower.
Great, are there any shops that offer the unlocked-no-contract version already?
You can buy it unlocked from Orange, it's quite expensive though, something like 500 and 600 euros depending on the version.
It doesn't say that they have to sell it unlocked, it says that they have to allow all carriers to sell it.
Right now, you can buy an unlocked iPhone at an Orange shop for 709 euros unlocked (16gb). Or you can get it for 129 euros with a 12 month contract. They are required by French law to unlock a contract phone at your request for 100 euros (before 6 months) or for free (after 6 months).
The only thing this ruling changes is that now all carriers can sell the phone. I expect the prices to be nearly the same, but the other providers have much better plans than Orange. Orange is like the "nextel" of french providers - expensive, strict policies, and you don't get any benefit by paying more for their service.
And I haven't seen anyone else selling it yet, which is not surprising since the ruling is a few hours old.
You can get totally unlocked, contract-free iPhones in Belgium but they cost an eye watering EUR 525 (8GB) or EUR 615 (16GB). I'd like one but I'm not about to pony-up that sort of money, particularly when the call plans available from the local companies are a bit crap.
http://iphone3g.mobistar.be/en/iphone3g.cfm#
I hope i don't get voted down down for this.
OWNED!
Still not moving to France though
god forbid you get low ranked.
life as you know it might end.
someone on the internet might disagree with you!!
I doubt that he cares what other people on the internet think, the problem is the whole white out thing that Engadget has going on. If you ask me, they should make low ranked posts tinted red, and higher ones either light blue or green.
Censoring unpopular comments by making them hard to read is more of a punishment to the rest of us as than to the commenter. My eyes hurt... :(
Thing is, Apple, no matter what the rulling is, will more then likely only sell the phone to Orange and to no other provider or store in France.
They still have the right to deny sales to anyone other then their own chosen partners unless a judge declares a penalty fee for every day the phone isn't available in x% volume at other providers or stores.
Psh...beat me to it while I was confirming comment
You are wrong, they will be forced by either fines or not being allowed to sell it at all, you think they only just now came across an attempt to monopolise and are making laws up as they go along?
I guess that is one good thing about the French, they dont take shit from no one!
... You must have the French confused with some other nationality
French - Don't take no Shit from no one your right there!
Google - French Strike now try it with your own country !
We Could all learn a little from the french working hours / petrol / cigarettes / Health Services / Iphone's ECT . . . .
Indeed, even though the french used to resist the US a bit at least, now with sarkozy they are just odd-accented americans.
except from the germans.
and before that, the germans again.
and before that the english.
but go ahead, you seem to be on a roll
Sorry my bad...
German too: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2007/11/want_an_unlocke.html
What good will this do, I wonder? Correct me if I am wrong, but Apple isn't a French company and so the Cheese-Eating-Surrender-Monkeys have no authority over who Apple does and doesn't refuse to sell their products to. Surely Orange could find some way to maintain their exclusivity agreement...
Legally and under the local law, Apple is a french company.
Yeah, local law does not apply to foreign companies. For instance Honda does whatever it wants in the US. God you are an idiot.
Remember that American idiot in the 90s that got flogged in Singapore for breaking the law there and we did nothing to stop their government from doing so?
Go on.....do the math.
Hardly surprising really, exclusive agency agreements have been unlawful under EU rules for a long time, in fact I'm surprised this hasn't been picked up before unless US companies aren't covered by the same laws (?).
Can't help thinking though that it's a bit late "for the holidays". But as the French say; "Bof" (done with a shrug of the shoulders and a look of disinterest, usually when you try and speak the language... badly).
If you're operating in a country, you have to follow the local laws.
The reason these things take time, is that the bureacratic process is somewhat slow, given that all parts get a chance to explain themselves to certain deadlines, etc.
Maybe I'm just naive, but if I was a company, I would look into legal things before doing, you know, stuff.
You are destined to be poor forever if you worry about laws as you are monopolising.
says the poor man.
This won't make much a difference, since other carriers in France are offering similar plan at almost the same price (5-10%). The 3 carriers operating in France have already been convicted and fined for abusive market sharing and non competitive actions.
What we (I'm french in France) truly need is another carrier, like the ISP called Free that introduced 22Mbps ADSL with triple-play (internet+IPTV+phone) at 30€/month while other ISP were providing ADSL capped at 1Mbps for twice the price. Now, french broadband is one of the best.
I absolutely agree. As for the US, US consumers constantly get poor service from MOST if not ALL technology service providers. Carriers that provide cable, wireless, internet, etc. treat their customers terribly - what it actually costs to provide these services is really a fraction of what a customer is charged. The only way to get out from under it is to create a new service provider or to fire the service provider and go without (as if that would happen). I am a capitalist and pro-competition, so this law leaves me with some mixed feelings.
I also don't think people understand the real costs of research and development and what the real cost of cellphone is - plus the dynamics of the cheaper costs of production because of China. These plans are to promote purchasing because if they were purchased out-right, the cost is ridiculous. So, you can pick your poison, and it's ALL poison. It's the carrier as well as the manufacturer working together and it is the consumer that gets eaten alive. We can let the market decide, but realize that most consumers aren't like Engadget readers, and thus, purchase things ignorant of the high cost to them, and they are THE market. So, no one twists anyone's arm to buy a $300 phone. Cheers to French government stepping in, but there are catch-22s all over this one.
It's a wonder how any company can make business in France, or the greater EU for that matter. With their extreme 'consumerist rights' agenda. It's just stupid. You don't like someone's product, don't buy it. It's as simple as that.
You're missing the point, everyone wants an iphone (some more secretely than others lol ) but as soon as you have competition, you have better deals. Same as MACs... really nice... not cheap since their is no competition (beyond osx86)... but nice.
Unless you work for Apple or Orange, I am sure you can appreciate this.
Well, sure there is competition with the Mac. You don't have to buy a Mac from Apple - you can buy one from many independent resellers and each of them are free to price the computer how they see fit.
@Kelmon
I totally agree with your capitalist point of view, however, it's not true about pricing on Apple products. They do not have the ability to charge what they want. Apple sets the prices and official licensed retailers have to follow suit. This is not unique and many companies do this.
@K
You are missing the point. I don't work for either company, but I'm an American Capitalist. If the price is to high, don't buy it. Either the seller will lower the price b/c the market demands it (lack of demand b/c it's priced to high) or the company/product will go out of business and no longer be sold. Then you don't even have the option to buy it at any price. Capitalism at it's finest.
@ Taylor
Who are you? Sarah Palin?
Seriously....before you show off any more of your "expertise" in foreign affairs, maybe you should look around at our economic free fall before revelling in our capitalist system so condescendingly.
How can you be so arrogant? What are you...French?
@Derbeste
Sarah Palin's got nothin' on me! In case you haven't heard, the rest of the world isn't doing so hot either. The dollar is actually getting quite strong, which means that, overall, our economy is doing better than the average right now.
PS. I do not claim to know anything of foreign affairs, other than the fact that I live in Africa and grew up in America, so I'm likely to have a broader worldview than you, but the discussion is about socialist business practices vs. the capitalist that America is slowly moving away from. Now that we got Obama at the helm, it will be quickened I'm sure.
Nice try. I grew up in the military, so I have lived all over the world including a 15 year childhood in Germany.
And if we as Americans move away from Capilalism, it's not Obama's fault. It's the fault of the corrupt CEOs that have abused our current system so badly as to make tighter reigns necessary for the time being.
Obama is merely the messenger.
And whether the entire world is slowing or not is pretty moot. We kicked it off and that shows our system is FAR from perfect. It's certainly not good enough to gloat over.
@Derbeste
Wait, you're saying that the CEOs have a socialist mentality for business? (they are anti-government, anit-union and everything else that IS socialism) Your screw is loose.
PS. Do you know what they did to the 'messenger' (there it is, another Jesus reference) in medieval and pre-medieval times?
PS. You are the rare exception for the liberal mass here who lacks a worldview outside of their urban community in the states. I commend you for that.
Taylor, you can't have THAT broad a world view, you say you live in "Africa" like it's a country. That's what most Americans say. Lemme guess, you live in a wealthy part of South Africa, in a former apartheid enclave with nice tall gates around it and property values too high to let "Africans" in anyhow?
How dumb does this sound: "I'm worldly, I grew up in America and now I live in Asia".
Just to mention that one of the three carriers (and of course Orange's competitor) is Bouygues which is very very close of the french president ... Its CEO is Sarkozy's son godfather.
And the other (sfr) has nothing to do with him.
And the French government owns a great part of Orange so you're not making sense here sorry.
I don't think Sarkozy has anything to do with this (for once...) and that's because it's a court decision not a law...
Would someone please offer a comparison of Apple(s) to Orange(s)? Or is that possible?
Being a Bouygues customer, I would rather have an HTC Touch HD at 150 euros ...
I fucking hate mimes. Bastards, the lot of them.
You know a mime is a terrible thing to waste.
I waiting for the release of "Mime: The Musical".
Of course they're ruled illegal.
They were connecting apples and oranges.
ROLFMAO! x2
How i wish the same would happen here the US
That artwork is amazing.
I wonder if this kicks off the whole Orange to provide iPhones in the UK thing anytime soon.
apparently there are way to many stupid people in this world. The reason there is one carrier is because of the massive software and DB upgrades needed to do things like visual voicemail and data relay. This article is stupid and so are the rest of you calling for the iphone to be released to every carrier. Now that other carriers can carry the phone, do you think apple will support them and their tech issues. what a mess.
under this logic, Apple should stop building software and computers for countries with different languages too.
If you think that updates are SO that big that only Apple can deal with one company, you're an idiot; nothing much has changed since iPhone 3G's release (nothing much has changed between the first iPhone and the 3G for that matter). Most carriers have the technology, incentive and capital to deal with their own problems, as network problems are NETWORK PROBLEMS, Apple can't do anything about it.
If they can buy the right to the iPhone, they most likely can support it too. Look at a company that sells phones on all networks (Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericcson for example), or look and see how many countries the iPhone is already in. They seem to be multitasking pretty well. and you *may* realise that your post was utter garbage.
Go run along and play with your Furby or something, there's a good chap.
OMG you are such a Jerk !
Dude stop thinking that outside america is the 3rd world !
Phones by Nokia, sony, HTc etc.. have voicemail for ages !!!!
There is nothing technological about this contract, it was pure bullshit.
Grow up already and open your eyes ! watch the world for America's sake.
You are missing the point, it is not apple that needs to upgrade their servers/software it is the provider that must. ATT spent over 37M to provide the services Apple wanted with their phone. Things like Visual Voicemail is not ran by Apple but by ATT.
Instead of posting your random OPINIONS please look up the facts. Anyone that sees what it takes for a particular Cell Phone provider to offer the services APple does will see the logic of an exclusive deal....
"ATT spent over 37M to provide the services Apple wanted with their phone" [citation needed]
The majority of the investment ATT made in support of the iPhone was not in visual voicemail servers, it was in the draconian "Authorization" servers, a small investment in network deployment (very small), and mostly in advertising and training. Hell, visual voicemail existed way back in 2004. All it takes is pushing a small XML file prior to the voicemail, and accepting a DTMF tone to skip to a certain message. This is not complex technology, and it CERTAINLY isn't beyond the abilities of a carrier that supports millions of cellphone and data connections to make a minor software upgrade to their voicemail servers.
I'm amazed you think this is that difficult, or maybe you believe Apple technology is so "advanced" that no one else in the whole world could possibly figure out how to do it?
Good on the French. Contract exclusivity and industry cartels in low competition markets only hurt consumers in the end.
Well, one thing Apple could do is just withdraw from the French market. Kind of an "Atlas Shrugged" approach.
Alternatively, they could allow all carriers to sell the unlocked $800+ version.
64 million people, that's a lot of customers and a LOT of apple cash.
But yeah they could.
They could I personally wouldn't care much, but they would sell 200,000 less iPhones and that makes a lot.
plus a lot of other European countries are gonna do the same soon, so Apple isn't going to do anything about it.
Maybe they will keep a low profile for once.
"Alternatively, they could allow all carriers to sell the unlocked $800+ version."
Except, y'know, people would then buy unlocked from HK instead where it's at least US$200 cheaper than "$800+".
Plus, HK$ is tied to the US$, which is falling fast relative to the euro, so the gap will widen even further. Yeah.
Good! Something like that wont happen here in America! I refuse to pay AT and T for crap service just so I can have the phone I want. I did not want to have to hack the iPhone to use it on my carrier, but if by 2010 the iPhone is not open and compatible with other 3G carriers, I will be unlocking one myself.
Cell phones should be open and not locked to exclusives. This will force the carriers to improve the quality of there service and prices, eliminate service contracts, and provide far superior technology then what is currently available in the US.
You do realize they aren't Cingular anymore, right? I'm guessing you're with Verizon by your comment, if you had T-Mobile I would just laugh. I could fit their 3G network in my pocket.
Maybe the service was still lame when they took over Cingular, possibly. But I have been with them since July 07 and I have not had one dropped call or missed text, and I get 2 to 4 bars of HSDPA service just about everywhere I go. It's not everywhere yet but it is available just about anywhere I go.
I do live in NJ so I would imagine their network availability is rather strong here. Not sure where you live but I assure you, their service is anything but crap. I liked Verizon when I was with them but switched to AT&T when my mother got a job with them so now I get 50% discount on the services. Even with the discount I was worried that the service would suck so I was reluctant to switch, but it didn't take long to be put at ease. AT&T didn't just slap their name over everything that said Cingular, they vastly improved on what Cingular left them with.
I love how people come and say that France are in the wrong: "stupid extremists, surrender monkeys", etc. I think that judges and lawyers are a *little* smarter than you...
What a fruity mess.
You're missing the point. This is not something any government SHOULD be doing. If a merchant, or an individual decides he/she/it does not want to sell a particular item to someone, he/she/it has the right to do that. This works the same for any other industry in almost any other government.
Let's make a hypothetical case here, assume that Orange itself came up with the Orange iPhone, as opposed to Apple Inc. Assume that it was accepted as wide spread as the Apple iPhone and just as popular. Would the French government make them sell their phone, which they developed, for their network, at their cost, to other carriers? Yes.
The French government is effectively saying, you can't bring candy to the classroom unless you give it to everyone.
Hello Socialism. Goodbye Capitalism.
God forbid an Apple child. All he would talk about is how much better he is than you, and he would have no friends.
"The French government is effectively saying, you can't bring candy to the classroom unless you give it to everyone."
No, it's saying that the school has to allow everyone to sell the candy rather than allow a candy maker to sign up a deal with a single child and only allow them to sell their candy at the school - everyone selling candy has to be allowed to sell all brands of candy.
If you don't like our horrible socialist laws and ways don't sell your goods over here, if you hate us so much why do you want our horrible money?
@you_are_all_cows
Don't knock socialism - remember, capitalism has delivered the mess we're all in at the moment. Regulation is always necessary because people are greedy bastards if left to their own devices (can you say $50 billion fraud?). Both pure capitalism and socialism are bad.
You didn't understand any of it did you ?
Do you know what's the BASIC and by that I mean the First and foremost, the ultimate alpha of your beloved liberalism, your free market ?
Do you ?
It's called PURE AND PERFECT COMPETITION (by Frank Knight ©)
Now I ask you do you think it is a perfect competition between the carrier if some manufacturers decide to sell their phone to only 1 of the carrier ?
No it is Bias competition and this my friends is a great threat to your free market.
This has nothing to do with socialism asshole and by the way France isn't a socialist country, I know it quite well I live in France and I'm a member of the socialist party so.
Sole result of this will be to send the iPhone prices through the roof in France.
Everybody will be able to sell the unlocked version of it, with very inferior subsidies than those granted by Orange leveraging an exclusivity.
This absolutely destroys the business of selling exclusive phones with one specific network : goodbye colour variations, and goodbye BB Storm exclusivity on Vodafone.
How is this a bad thing.
You talk about something you don't know : subsidies don't work the same way as in the USA.
The Orange Subside wasn't exceptional at all.
For exemple the BB bold is worth the same as the iPhone unlocked and Bouygues telecom, sfr and Orange sell it at the same price : 199 euros.
Competition is rarely a way to make prices higher.