Opinion: Don't expect an iPhone on other networks anytime soon

Posted under Technology on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 10:35 am | Comments are off for this article

The iPhone is a strangely attractive beast. On the one hand it’s clearly one of the market-leading smartphones, offering the power of the App Store and the smooth elegance of the industry’s best touchscreen.

On the other, it carries a huge price tag (as well as contract) and can barely compete with other phones in the market on some features. So why is it that the sheer notion of it being carried on other networks should warrant pages and pages of media coverage?

Simply: it’s desirable, and especially here in the UK, customers still are reticent to change their network (mostly for fear of losing a ‘loyalty discount’ for staying with a company for umpteen years… but in reality, many networks will match your deal with a little haggling).

I think it’s unlikely we’ll see the iPhone 3G on another network this year, and we certainly won’t see the 3GS appearing on any other network’s shelves. And either way, it doesn’t matter: you don’t have to stay locked to a network to get the best deal, and the iPhone isn’t the pinnacle of the mobile phone world. It’s good, but it’s not the only one.

Big news

Two weeks ago, the main news was the ‘fact’ T-Mobile and Orange were in negotiations with Apple to take the iPhone onto their networks, thereby cutting O2′s exclusive deal.

O2, of course, responded in the same way it has been for a number of years: “We have a multi-year agreement with Apple to sell iPhone in the UK. This relationship continues.”

Yes, but what does multi year mean? Technically, if we’re going into the semantics of language, 1.1 years is a multi-year agreement (although obviously not true). But sources within the industry have indicated O2′s multi-year deal is up later this year, something that O2 did not deny, just repeated the same phrase it’s been repeating time and time again.

And that’s what’s got the public’s imagination flaring – the fact a company won’t alter its statement to suit every possible revelation. You could easily make the case that O2 should have known what it was taking on when it won the race for the iPhone, but it’s not plausible for a company to spend practically half its time changing a statement every time a rumour leaks out.

Talks with Apple

It seems the stem of this leak comes from the fact T-Mobile operators were saying they’re stocking the iPhone in shortly, and sources within the company have confirmed they’re in talks with Apple.

Well, call centre employees haven’t always had the best reputation for sticking to the truth. I’ve heard anecdotes of some offering to pay customers to buy an iPhone, unlock it, and stay on their network. I’ve heard of other networks’ retention teams promising that they’ll be stocking the iPhone later in the year… and yet, it hasn’t materialised.

In the chain of command at these call centres, the person on the end of the phone isn’t likely to know the ins and outs of deals being thrashed out in the boardrooms, so you have to take such promises with a few bucketfuls of salt.

Of course, there’s the current news to fan the flames: T-Mobile is offering customers paying over £75 a month a free iPhone that it has imported unlocked from the continent – something that many believe is the pre-cursor to the network becoming an official stockist.

Lest we forget though – T-Mobile is apparently up for sale, and therefore likely needs to keep customers at all costs to make sure it represents a valuable proposition to a prospective buyer, so it would make sense it might even take a slight loss (although we don’t know the overall costs) to keep these high end customers no matter what it takes.

But would you really want a second generation iPhone 3G when you’re paying nearly £100 a month to a phone company? At that price, it would only take a quick call to O2 and you’re on a similar price plan with a UK specific iPhone 3GS.

Talking of iPhone rumours, don’t get me started on the amount of rumours that fly around when the iPhone gets a new model or firmware upgrade – there’s too many to mention.

It will have a 5MP camera, a video calling function, there’ll be a nano option – all stated as fact. We’ve seen screenshots of it appearing on Orange’s internal systems in the UK, have heard that T-Mobile is extending its deal with the phone from Europe into the UK… it just goes on and on.

The networks respond

I’ve spoken to all the networks on the subject in the past week, and there’s some real nuggets for the conspiracy theorists out there. T-Mobile told me there was nothing to report, but would update me ‘should the situation change’. Orange simply point blank refused to talk about it, and Vodafone confirmed there weren’t any negotiations.

Of course, we all know about 3′s campaign to help provide the world with cheaper mobiles full of free Skype minutes, and the CEO has previously gone on record saying the iPhone isn’t the kind of device the network is looking at.

That doesn’t mean that O2 is definitely keeping its agreement with Apple the way it’s always been. T-Mobile could be about to take the older 3G version of the iPhone, with O2 keeping its agreement to stock the main iPhone 3GS exclusively.

This seems especially likely when you consider that O2 has just been announced as the official stockist of the Palm Pre (apparently Apple’s bitter rival according to the patent wars) and also the new Samsung Android phone too, so it’s not hard pressed for decent handsets.

It’s also locked a number of customers into a 24-month contract prior to the new iPhone 3GS’ release, so it will at least have retained them for a while yet too.

But the point is: not only does it not really matter which network a phone is on (network coverage issues aside) as you can get pretty much the same deal anywhere, but the fact O2 could lose exclusivity is a saga that will rumble on and on until the day comes that the iPhone isn’t just tied to one carrier (just like AT&T say in the US).

And of course – it doesn’t really matter. If the iPhone is on O2, T-Mobile, Orange or Virgin Mobile, it’s still the iPhone. It’s still just another mobile phone.