04/21/2008, 10:15am, EDT
Monday, April 21st
Italian iPhone due within weeks, unlocked?
An Italian iPhone will be released "in weeks," according to one of the country's newspapers. Repubblica claims that a contract was signed last week in Apple's home city of Cupertino, California, after a visit from the CEO of Telecom Italia. The first version of the phone in Italy should be the highly-anticipated 3G model, rather than the current 2.5G edition; more importantly however, Apple is said to be experimenting with a completely new pricing scheme in the country.
Instead of locking iPhones to a single carrier for several years, as in the US or the UK, Apple is expected to allow the sale of phones that are unlocked by default, only priced at a higher level; this would be similar to the arrangement with Orange in France, except that there should be no locked phones as a cheaper alternative. This is also said to be in keeping with the popularity of pre-paid plans in Italy, and a willingness to spend more for the freedom of switching carriers at will.
Italians should be able to use the iPhone on various networks including 3 and Vodafone; Telecom Italia will still benefit the most however, being the primary point of sale, and the only company with official support training.
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Also, if this story is true, it won't happen for at least until June or July.
The differences are these will be OFFICIALLY unlocked, not some unsupported unlock.
They will also be 3G phones which will not yet be available here.
If nobody wants them, no skin off my nose. But I will be there right when they come out and I'll be happy to pick some up if anyone is interested.
"Italians should be able to use the iPhone on various networks including 3 and Vodafone" - and this I don't. Italian networks only? Within Italy only? Oh, so many possibilities...
And the price. 800 Euro? More?