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Can Apple Find a European iPhone Partner?
pete314 writes "A Vnunet.com article claims that European mobile operators are unwilling to concede to Apple iPhone partnership demands. Several operators went as far as to say they 'will never offer the iPhone.' In the US, Verizon reportedly passed on the device, and AT&T is rumored to have engaged in a revenue-sharing deal that includes monthly payments to Cupertino." In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.
[quote]Sorry, that's just not so. I bought an unlocked Treo 650, stuck in my T-Mobile SIM (and T-Mobile does NOT offer the 650) and it Just Worked (tm) - like GSM is supposed to do.[/quote]
So...you made that Treo 650 yourself?
Or, Palm has already made deals with major mobile carriers prior to manufacture Treo 650?
You mixed up customer-level locking and mobile-level locking. The latter is done by manufacturers to register a unique identifier of a particular model of mobile phone with major mobile carriers.
In your case, major mobile carriers has already recognized 'Treo 650', the locking you're talking about is just consumer-level restriction.
I don't know about T-Mobile, but Palm doesn't has to strike deal directly with T-Mobile in order to get connected. The deal sometime are in form of transferrable agreements among mobile-carriers in the same area. It looks like Apple has to strike individual deals with each area in the country, but in fact it's not. Apple only has to strike deal with major carriers, and the carriers have their inter-connection agreements to let iPhone thru. I may not get into too much details into this.