iPhones Not Exclusive To T-Mobile In Germany

T-Mobile, the mobile unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, which holds exclusive rights for the Apple iPhone in Germany announced on Wednesday that it would change some terms and allow the iPhone to operate on rival networks.

In a press release, the company said that T-Mobile will offer the phone for 999 euros ($1477) immediately as well as continuing to sell it for the discounted 399 euros ($590) in combination with a two-year contract.

Carolina Milanesi, a research director at Gartner, a research company in Stamford, Conn said, “How many people are going to spend 999 euros on a phone? People are not used to spending that kind of money. In every single country now, people are going to look at the possibility of getting around the exclusivity issue.”

The iPhone was made available in Germany by T-Mobile on Nov. 9 but it came only with a two year contract. The German unit of rival Vodafone protested that practice at a state court in Hamburg.

The court issued an injunction on Nov. 12 ruling in favor of Vodafone forcing T-Mobile to back down. The injunction bans T-Mobile from selling the iPhone with contracts or the SIM lock that prevents the phone from working on another network. In France, laws stop the Orange unit of France Télécom from selling the device with similar restrictions.

Any customer, including those who have already purchased the iPhone, can have the SIM lock on their phone removed to work with another network operator according to T-Mobile. However, it added that “many of the functions will only be available to T-Mobile customers with a complete tariff package.”

The exclusive features include Web surfing on T-Mobile’s network of 8,000 Wi-Fi access points, and “visual voice mail” that allows users to hear messages without listening to previous ones.

T-Mobile also released a statement saying that it would abide by the conditions "until the legal situation is resolved." The company said on Tuesday that it would appeal the injunction and it also said it reserves the right to consider seeking damages.

Vodafone said it wanted the issue settled. Marion Stolzenwald a spokeswoman for Vodafone said, "What matters is for all these questions to be resolved soon by the state court in Hamburg."

The new phone is working on a different technology called EDGE and is not operating on 3G networks which are assumed to be Europe's fastest. T-Mobile is the only carrier to offer EDGE across Germany.

Bonn based T-Mobile, has more than 34 million customers in Germany, Europe’s largest wireless market.

There were no comments from Apple on T-Mobile’s new offer. The iPhone by Apple is a combined cell phone and iPod media player that can also access the Internet wirelessly.