Apple may offer the iPhone in all international markets, liberalising its distibution of the device to include all carriers, a report suggests this morning.
Bloomberg is reporting statements to this effect made by the CEO of Singapore mobile phone carrier, MobileOne. Company boss Neil Montefiore told media: "I think, before the end of the year we will be'' carrying the phones in our stores. It will become available in all markets, with all operators.''
Now, this could simply mean Apple will be offering the device in all international markets by the end of the year through operators it has already reached a deal with, or could signal a newly liberal approach.
If the latter, then it's interesting this news emerges as an earlier report explains Orange will join O2 in offering the iPhone in the UK before the end of the year. Could these two matters be connected?
Singapore Telecommunications in May it won rights to distribute iPhone in Singapore, though a release date hasn't yet been confirmed. StarHub Ltd., also expects to offer the device this year.
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For those wondering, the
For those wondering, the other operator in Singapore StarHub has confirmed that it will release the iPhone in Dec 2008. So no surprise there.
Rumors here in The
Rumors here in The Netherlands are that besides T-Mobile, which is currently selling the iPhone, Vodafone and KPN will be selling the iPhone by october/november this year. SOunds good to me!
makes sense to me
I think it would be smart to open the iphone to everyone.
Locking it for one carrier exclusive made sense as long as the single carrier gave part of the turnover made with the iphone to apple.
Since this is not the case anymore, why keep it exclusive if apple doesn't get anything from it.
They just need to make sure that all the carrier make visual voicemail available and offer only unlimited data plans with the iphone.
Well here in Denmark. Telia
Well here in Denmark. Telia don't offer Visual Voicemail or a Unlimited data plan.
So just because you are the only carrier in a contry that sells the iPhone you don't need to support the featurs of the iPhone.
..... Yes I dislike Telia
Well, that would be excellent
Well, that would be excellent news for us here in Israel, where carriers are fighting each other so much over who will be importing the latest Nokia or Moto that no one can take the plunge and offer the iPhone. I don't care, I might just get an unlocked 3G from France on my next visit!
Well...
Wouldn't be surprising. Apple wants to be dominant in the hardware sector, not help telcos be dominant in their own industries. It was perhaps necessary at first to sign exclusivity contracts with the likes of AT&T and Rogers, now it is less and less important. Telcos, with the popularity of the iPhone, are beholden to Apple and not the other way around.
Apple could gain a bit by doing exclusive contracts: revenue sharing, for example. But exclusivity also hurts Apple - I for one wouldn't switch to SingTel because Starhub provides a better HSPDA deal (and when living in a student hostel with Internet the speed of molasses, that's important). The iPhone is good, but not good enough for me to pay a lot more to SingTel for inferior service.
And of course, a lot of people would say the same of Starhub and M1. There's no one-size-fits-all telco. And unless Apple recreates the dominance in the mobile phone sector as they did with the iPod, it is unlikely Apple would gain much with exclusivity.
BTW, it seems credible
BTW, it seems credible enough. Previously, Apple's website referred to SingTel, and now it doesn't anymore.
Unlimited Data Plans Already Gone
In Canada, we don't have an unlimited data iPhone plan offered, so I doubt Apple will be pushing to ensure that. Canada could use some competition so that Rogers doesn't get away with giving us terrible plans.