View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/07/10/05/french.law.impedes.iphone
Friday, Oct 05, 2007 10:05am

French law may impede Orang...

A law meant to protect public choice may delay the arrival of the iPhone in France, one newspaper reports. French publication Les Echos writes that under the terms of the law, the iPhone will have to be sold with and without contracts, thereby preventing Apple from forming an exclusive deal with French carrier Orange. The paper writes that Apple would like as much as 30 percent of voice and data revenues from the iPhone; the two companies have been heavily disputing revenue sharing however, and Orange has yet to set a date for the product's release, despite having announced that it would ship before Christmas as an exclusive deal.

The situation is said to be dire enough that the iPhone may not only be delayed past Christmas, but kept out of France. Apple's three other contracts -- forged with AT&T, England's O2 and Germany's T-Mobile -- have all been exclusives, signed with one carrier per country. Should Apple be forced to open up sales of the iPhone, it may decide that the French market is not worth it. "The risk we're evaluating this week is that Apple crosses France off," an Orange source tells Echos.