It really looked that easy: Apple picks one exclusive mobile network operator, negotiates a data flat fee fort he iPhone customers and makes money out of hardware sales and mobile spendings of the iPhone customers. And by the way Apple creates an iPhone-hype for the market rollout. The media loves the long lines of waiting iPhone-fans in front of the AppleStores at the first rollout day.

It still worked out great in the United States with their partner AT&T. But in Europe – and especially in Germany – the iPhone rollout evolves into a farce:

  • The iPhone can only play to it’s strength with a data flat rate. The customer must not think about the costs of fetching those e-mails, loading a web-page or getting the directions with GoogleMaps. The iPhone concept is only working this way! But T-Mobile seems to afraid of their customers: They sell them a data flat rate which, strictly speaking, isn’t a data flat rate: Depending on the rate plan, customers get a bandwidth limitation to a max. 64 kbit/s download and 16 kbit/s upload starting after downloading 200 MB (Complete M), 1 GB (Complete L) and 5 GB (Complete XL) per month. In plain language: T-Mobile is not charging any additional fees for heavy data usage, but they punish those customers by drastically throttling their data bandwidth.
  • The competitor Vodafone was able to provoke T-Mobile to offer a SIM-lock free iPhone for 999 Euro with an interim injunction against the exclusive T-Mobile iPhone bundle. The SIM-lock free iPhone is a world premiere – and a new uncertainty for the customers. Only the worldwide developer community has to thank Vodafone for that step: Now it will be much easier to get a SIM-lock-free test-device, worldwide. There will also be a SIM-lock-free iPhone in France – but anyway this fact is clear before the rollout on November 29th.

Maybe T-Mobile realizes that it would help them to cross their bandwidth-throttling footnote out of their contracts – then the farce would turn into a winter tale. Christmas is near 😉

Sources: fscklog.com, macwelt.de, heise.de

Pin It on Pinterest

Shares
Share This