Despite rumours stating that T Mobile has won the rights to market the iPhone in Germany they are still refusing to comment on the situation which is interesting.
Vodafone probably lost the bid as they would be unwilling to allow easy and open access to the web without trying to pass users through the Vodafone portal services.
We would have expected T Mobile to either confirm or deny the rumours by now.
The Washington Post seems to think its a done deal:
“FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Telekom’s (DTEGn.DE) mobile phone unit T-Mobile clinched a deal to bring Apple Inc’s iPhone handset to Germany, according to a report in a German daily.
Without citing sources Rheinische Post said in a preview of a story to be published on Wednesday that T-Mobile is expected to sell the iPhone exclusively with a T-Mobile contract for around 450 euros ($612) starting Nov 1.
Despite previous announcements indicating that Vodafone is the favourite to obtain the rights to sell the iPhone in the UK it now appears that T Mobile is in the race as well.
An article in Marketing Week says T Mobile has “emerged as the frontrunner” and that Apple has “narrowed the European shortlist to Vodafone and T-Mobile”.
Tying the iPhone down to a single network in the UK would be commercial suicide for Apple. Most users are loyal to certain networks and very disloyal to others. If Vodafone was to win the rights there are a huge number of football fans who would never switch to them purely because of the Manchester United sponsorship deal.
Ryan Fitzgerald is the cell phone user who posted his number on a YouTube video inviting people to call him up. Thousands of calls, a CNN appearance and a massive phone bill later, Fitzgerald is a celebrity.
T Mobile hasn’t quite offered to take care of his bill for him but commented:
“T-Mobile is intrigued by Ryan Fitzgerald’s experiment,” the company said in a statement late yesterday, hours after Fitzgerald appeared live on CNN (with his cellphone, of course).
“We find Ryan Fitzgerald’s experiment to be interesting and we are glad he was able to take advantage of the unlimited weekend and evening minutes included in his T-Mobile plan,” the company said. “We look forward to learning more about Ryan’s efforts.”
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The Sony Ericsson W880i we reported about earlier this month will be released today in the UK. Most retailers are offering this great handset free of charge for contract customers.
Lucky customers signing up to a T Mobile tariff on the official T Mobile website will be able to choose the W880 on a Flext 35 price plan. T Mobile have included some extra features on their version of the W880 such as a dedicated music button giving access to the T Mobile Jukebox service offering full track downloads for £1 per song.
Other offers from O2 and Orange include savings of up to £175 with 5 months free line rental.
The Sony Ericsson W880 is just 9.4mm thick, the same as a CD case, and is the slimmest ever Sony Ericsson mobile phone yet. A 1GB Memory Stick Micro is included in the package so you can store around 1000 tracks.
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Samsung and T Mobile have today announced a new clamshell for the US GSM market.
The Samsung SGH T219 is available in red or brown and offers a good level of features for a price of around $20 with a contract. Specifications include speaker phone, MMS support and tri band GSM radio.
T Mobile revolutionised the mobile phone market in the UK last year with the introduction of a new flexible tariff called T Mobile Flext. Since its introduction T Mobile has become the fastest growing network in the UK and thousands of customers have saved money on their bills.
Flext differs from normal monthly tariffs by offering a flexible allowance every month that adapts to your usage habits, rather than offering a set number of minutes that you may or may not use. The monthly allowance can be used towards calls, texts, voicemail and picture messages to any UK network at any time and you are not required to decide in advance how you want to use it.
The most popular option is the Flext 35 tariff which offers the equivalent of £180 worth of calls and text every month for just £35 per month. Some offers even include 7 months half price line rental saving over £120!
T Mobile have established themselves as the best value mobile tariff, why not give them a try and see how much you could save?
Robin O’Kelly, head of communications for mobile phone network T Mobile, has been discussing voice roaming and data pricing this week.
T Mobile has introduced flat rate data pricing in the UK but admits it needs to do more to match the new service from 3 that offers surcharge free access.
The UK’s fastest growing network are keen to focus on the mobile internet during 2007 having successfully introduced a new concept of bill with the Flext tariff in 2006.
Interestingly T Mobile also mentioned a dislike for the term HSDPA, preferring “mobile broadband” instead. With consumers already aware of how broadband has improved their internet surfing at home it will be far easier to sell mobile broadband without having to explain what HSDPA actually is.
O’Kelly hopes that T Mobiles internet speeds will reach 3.6 Mbps this year allowing a real comparison with home broadband. 3G coverage will also increase in the UK from 70 to 80 percent.
There was also scepticism for mobile TV with O’Kelly stating that the technology was not ready to allow T to take off in the mainstream.
When asked whether T Mobile would consider carrying the iPhone O’Kelly said they had a “strong interest” but wanted to know how Apple would be distributing it in Europe. As we might have expected T Mobile wanted a 3G version of the iPhone, stating “Are they going to have a 3G version for Europe? It would be handicapping itself if it turned up as 2.5G,” and pointing out that the forthcoming Nokia N95 would be stiff competition.
With operators making a lot of their income from 3G and data access it’s not hard to see why T Mobile would be keen on a 3G iPhone. No doubt if a 3G version was made available it would attract much larger subsidy’s from the networks as well.
T Mobile has been the fastest growing mobile phone network in the UK over the past 12 months and it looks like they may have overstretched themselves this Christmas.
Customers were apparently frustrated by uncharacteristic poor service and network capacity issues. Many retailers reported that customers were unable to connect new handsets to T Mobile for three days.
T Mobile continues its great year with a 127% rise in new customers in the first half of 2006.
Sales are up 7.9% to £1.48 billion but the investment required to attract 748,000 new customers has cost a lot of money and the overall earnings are down 44%.
Most of the new users are contract customers with pay monthly sales growing 14 times faster than the same period last year. The success of the Flext contact is the overriding factor in these results with 771,000 users since the service started in March.
Subscriber churn is one of the major problems in mobile phone retailing and contributes a large cost to the networks. T Mobile are attempting to cut churn by targeting pay monthly customers instead of the more fickle pay as you go users.
T Mobile are also well placed in the rollout of HSDPA internet access in the UK so they should continue to see this level of growth for some time.
T Mobile customers in the US are about to benefit from a great new contract that allows them to call 5 numbers for free all the time.
Imaginatively called the 5 plan its currently being tested in Oregon and will save some customers a large amount in call charges. The service does not support SMS and MMS messages or premium rate and international calls.
Sprint already offer a similar service but only to one number. This prove costly for T Mobile as most people only have a few numbers that they call on a regular basis.
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