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Court Order Against German T-Mobile iPhone Sales
An anonymous reader writes "In a strange move, Vodafone applied for and was granted a restraining order against T-Mobile to prohibit the sale of iPhone in Germany. A regional court in Hamburg has issued a restraining order. According to CNNMoney.com: 'Specifically, Vodafone is questioning the iPhone's exclusive use in T-Mobile's network and the use of the device being limited to certain fees within T-Mobile's subscription offerings.' Vodaphone says they are not trying to halt iPhone sales completely; they seem to want a court to examine the questions of exclusivity and licensing."
T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom were the PTT in Germany for years. Only recently has the EU cracked down on the mind-boggling roaming and int'l pricing-- hitting T-Mobile especially hard. No one's accusing anyone of anything right now, but getting a hearing when it looks like there might be some problems is perhaps healthier than going into post-agreement activation litigation.
T-Mobile has stupefying marketshare in Germany. Not total, but stupefying. And it's not just in mobiles (called a 'handy' in Germany) but in WiFi, hotel systems, hotspots, xDSL, and pay-by-packet schemes.
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I don't know what laws are like in your jurisdiction, but many European countries, and indeed the EU itself has very strict laws with regards to what restrictions you may and may not place on consumers. If a company follows these rules and a competitor is allowed to violate them without the authorities taking action, then I could very much understand that they feel pissed. It is not as much a matter about weather these laws are sensible or not, as it is a matter of them being equal for everyone. Basically, if the law requires Vodaphone to comply with A, B and C then they have all right to be pissed if their competitors can ignore A, B or C without consequences. That the consumers may or may not benefit from Vodaphone's legal action is just a side effect, and it can be debated if it is good or bad.
Acually 1.1.2 was unlocked within two or three days of making a public showing on the upgrade servers. It's only phones with the new baseband bootloader, i.e. those that come shipped with 1.1.2 out of the box, that can't yet be unlocked.
The court in Hamburg is well known for its strange decisions. A guy is even logging lots of trials from that single judge that is resonsible: http://www.buskeismus.de/ (German only, sorry)
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Thats not how it works in Germany - many people would be happy if it was that way. In Germany you can only buy it in T-Mobile shops. You can only buy the phone if you sign up for a 2 year contract in that shop - only after signing the agreement do you get the iPhone. You can't buy it from an Apple Store like in the USA.
The summary is incorrect -- I don't blame the submitter, because the CNN article is not very clear about what's going on either. If you happen to read German, here is a reasonably good article on the issue. To summarize: In Germany, this sort of exclusive contract does not exist -- you can get certain deals that are bound to your keeping a phone with a particular carrier (eg, a 200 phone for 15 if you keep a particular plan for two years, if you terminate the contract before then you have to pay the rebate back), but there's no such thing here as a phone that won't work on a competitor's network. Vodafone is asking a judge in Hamburg to rule on the legality of the exclusive service contract, but they are not preventing the sale of the device itself.
it's bloody fucking ironic how Apple decided only ATT would be its bitch in the US and went for Tmobile on the other side of the ocean.
Who else? AT&T doesn't exist over here and T-Mobile owns the D1 network, which has the most subscribers. Competitors like Vodafone, O2 or E-Plus are big, but not quite as big as T-Mobile, which had a huge advantage as it evolved out of the earlier federal post's telephone service.
T-Mobile really was the obvious choice.
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Nope, it's not exactly like that. The thing is that you should be able to buy the product from company B and then use it with the network of company A.
This concept is very clear right now in most of the things in EU policy. It's the same for most products, there should be a separation between manufacturer of a product and the service provider. Or at least have the option to choose service provider, no matter who you purchased the hardware from.
Another example, maybe a bit far fetched, but one I know well. In Europe, transport by train has two distict parts. One is the company who builds the tracks, and other is the company who runs the trains. And they cannot be the same company, and the company who builds the tracks must be open to ANY company running trains in their tracks, if they pay the stipulated track access charges.
The EU is pushing this idea in most areas of the economy. And I think it works.
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