Mobile Phones Blog

The iPhone in Germany: It’s an Open and Shut Case

December 5th, 2007 by Thomas

The locked/unlocked iPhone/Vodafone saga took another turn yesterday when it was announced that the same court in Germany that had ruled that Deutsche Telekom, who own T-Mobile, have now dismissed their earlier injunction that saw the telco having to offer customers unlocked iPhones alongside their exclusive tariffs.

The ruling was sought by Vodafone, who are the second biggest mobile network in Germany after T-Mobile, who are now only offering iPhones with contracts. German consumers can still legitimately hop on over to France to buy an unlocked iPhone if they so wish.

When T-Mobile were still selling unlocked versions of the handset, they were apparently doing so for an asking price equivalent to $1,481, whereas in France, unlocked iPhones from Orange are available for a slightly lesser fee of $964.

It has also been noted that presumably because of the French legal puncture in the bandwagon’s tyre, Steve Jobs refused to attend any iPhone media promotional events in France. Vodafone chief Arun Sarin, perhaps seeing Apple’s entry into the market as something of a Damoclesian sword, made a particularly sniffy comment about the iPhone last week.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 3:16 pm and is filed under T-Mobile, Vodafone, iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.