July 17 - 3:10pm EDT   Competition among multiple iPhone carriers in Italy has not resulted in low prices and happy customers, notebook italia reports. Controversy over service prices has led to a 10,000-signature petition, expressing disappointment with excessive costs. [full story]

July 16 - 10:05am EDT   An Italian venture capital firm is offering $250,000 in US funds to potential iPhone developers, according to reports. The company, H-FARM, says the deal is a part of its new Seed Program, meant to regularly boost a technology company every three months. This quarter's competition revolves around iPhone applications, and is asking companies to submit three-page proposals in PDF form, via e-mail. [full story]

July 10 - 4:35pm EDT   Italian interest in the iPhone 3G may be unusually low, early reports suggest. Although some 29 Telecom Italia stores are expected to begin selling the 3G within hours, at midnight local time on July 10th, a key TIM store in downtown Milan is said to have no lineups to speak of. Similarly, two Roman stores, including one on Via del Corso, are also said to be missing any lines. This contrasts with countries like the US, Japan and New Zealand, where long queues began forming days in advance. [full story]

July 8 - 9:20am EDT   Policies for iPhone 3G access to carrier Wi-Fi should vary dramatically around the world, reports say. While carriers such as AT&T and Rogers Wireless have committed to free hotspot access with a subscription, other countries may not hold this policy in common. Vodafone Italy now admits that it will not be offering any free access, and Orange Switzerland says this will be limited to 100 hours per month. [full story]

July 7 - 9:00pm EDT   Italian iPhone customers will supposedly enjoy the leisure of activating their iPhone from the comforts of their own home, while a third company – 3 Italy – announced it would also sell the iPhone, come September. Macity writes that both Telecom Italia and Vodafone will not be able to activate the iPhone 3G at the store, and will instead take both the device and SIM card home to perform the activation through iTunes, similar to how the first iPhone was sold. [full story]

July 7 - 3:40pm EDT   Having already announced its pre-paid plans, Telecom Italia has published the official subscription options for the iPhone 3G. The cheapest subscription, Starter, costs €30 per month and provides 1GB of data, but still requires customers to pay per minute or text message. The 250 plan (€50) upgrades to 250 minutes and 100 texts, while the 600 plan (€80) offers 600 minutes and 200 texts. [full story]

July 7 - 3:05pm EDT   International carrier Vodafone has announced the monthly rates for the iPhone 3G in Portugal and Italy. In the former country, most phones will require a two-year contract; the cheapest plan is the "Best iPhone 100" option, which costs approximately €30 per month, and offers 100 minutes, 100 texts and 250MB of data traffic. Best iPhone 230 (€45) upgrades to 230 minutes and texts, while the 500 plan (€65) graduates to its own corresponding numbers. Data remains fixed. Prices for the actual phones range from €299 (8GB) and €389 (16GB) under the 100 plan to €129 and €219 under the 500 option. [full story]

June 26 - 10:35am EDT   Telecom Italia's planned iPhone contracts have been leaked, an Italian site claims. A new memo, allegedly circulated amongst sales managers at TIM, suggests that there will be four two-year contract options beginning with the Starter, which costs €29 per month but does not have any voice or SMS messages included, and instead charges 15 cents per minute or text. More conventional plans begin with the TIM 250, which incorporates 250 minutes and 100 texts at a price of €49. [full story]

June 24 - 12:15pm EDT   Telecom Italia has announced some preliminary details on its two-year subscription prices for the iPhone 3G, reports say. While it has yet not disclosed the monthly cost of each plan, the iPhone itself should cost approximately €199 with an entry-level subscription; in a scheme similar to that of O2 in the UK, subscribers to high-end plans will receive the phone for free. Controversially, TIM will only say that each plan guarantees "at least" 1GB of data each month, despite the prevalence of unlimited transfers in other countries. [full story]

June 20 - 4:55pm EDT   Italian iPhone shoppers may be allowed to buy the device through Apple resellers, a local news site reports. Macity cites a source "informed on the facts," who claims that stores with the Apple Premium Reseller designation will be able to sell the device alongside Vodafone and Telecom Italia's locations, and Apple's one official store in the country, situated in Rome. The distribution deal is said to have been arranged between the carriers and the resellers, rather than directly through Apple. [full story]

June 19 - 9:50am EDT   Telecom Italia has announced some of its first pricing options for the iPhone 3G. As opposed to most carriers, TIM subscribers will have the choice of pre-paid plans alongside contracts; the former have been announced to be €499 for an 8GB iPhone, or €569 for a 16GB model. These prices are effectively identical to Vodafone's pre-paid options, and both companies will launch on July 11th. [full story]

June 4 - 4:50pm EDT   Apple may be refusing to negotiate with all players in the Italian cellphone market, one telecom executive suggests. Vincenzo Novari, the CEO of phone carrier 3 Italia, says that while his company is "super-interested about the iPhone," he has not heard any response in regard to inquiries at Apple, whether positive or negative. Novari in fact claims to have sent two e-mail messages directly to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, without receiving any sort of acknowledgement. [full story]

May 12 - 9:20am EDT   The first iPhones available to Italians will indeed be 3G models, an executive for carrier Telecom Italia is said to have confirmed. Although the company announced that it would carry the iPhone last week, at the time it would only say that it had "signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone in Italy within the year." Executive VP Luigi Licciardi revealed the existence of the 3G phone between sessions at the International Electronics Forum in Dubai. [full story]

May 6 - 9:25am EDT   Italy will be one of the first countries in the world to support the iPhone on multiple carriers, an announcement reveals. Local carrier Telecom Italia, also known as TIM, has declared that it will also sell the device alongside Vodafone, which today uncovered its plans to sell the device in 10 countries around the world. Responding to further inquiries, TIM will only elaborate that it has "signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone in Italy within the year." [full story]

April 21 - 10:15am EDT   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. [full story]