iPhone Germany: Vodafone gets injunction against T-Mobile, restricting iPhone sales. What a mess of sour grapes
Vodafone, who have missed out on the iPhone in every country it's been launched in so far, have obtained a Court Order in Germany which forces T-Mobile to sell the iPhone without a service plan.
The injunction is temporary, and Deutsche Telekom has two weeks to respond to it.
Various news reports give slightly different versions of the story, probably not helped by English-speaking journalists trying to translate from German press releases and statements.
According to Vodafone Germany's CEO, Friedrich Joussen, they could have quite easily halted sales altogether (yes, of course you could, Friedrich), but instead chose to champion the cause of consumers by allowing the iPhone to be bought without a calling plan.
The reasoning is not, of course, because of sour grapes that his company didn't do an exclusive deal with Apple, but because they have the interests of the whole German mobile market at heart, fearing that other handset makers may follow Apple's example and begin tying their handsets to specific providers.
I wonder if T-Mobile would've done the same thing had Vodafone scooped the iPhone contract? We can speculate.
I'm no expert on German mobile phone networks, but in the UK, some handsets do get tied to specific networks, and others don't. Some are only available to contract customers, others only to prepay customers. As far as I'm concerned, that's just the way it is. Why Germany has to be so different is another matter.
What irks me is that Vodafone were quite happy to push themselves forward as the exclusive European iPhone network earlier this year.
The possibility at this precise moment is that, with Apple's insistence that their phone be sold with a calling plan, no iPhones are being sold in Germany. This hasn't been confirmed, though.
We'll keep you posted with developments.
(Via Apple Insider)
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