[Nico_from_Paris]

France Telecom (Orange) CEO, Mr Lombard, has confirmed today the agreement with Apple to be the exclusive distributor of the iPhone in France.
Launch : "probably in November but sure before x-mas".

Price has not been set yet but it is sure that the phone will not be subsidized by Orange.

Orange is nb 1 in France (45% market share in mobile communication).

Mr Lombard said that the iPhone was currently tested to make sure it is stable and reliable on the orange network

[BuonRotto]

Ooh, Bill O'Reilly is gonna have a fit!

Any terms on contracts and costs?

[rasmits]

I guess I don't understand why, if Apple partnered with Orange in France, they wouldn't use Orange in the UK too? Orange operates in many countries - Spain, Italy, Switzerland, etc. Why go country to country?

[AWR]

It spreads!

I haven't heard anything about Italy, Spain or Switzerland (or Ireland, Portugal ...). I guess there will be announcements in due course.

What's the demand look like in France?

Edit: rasmits, you stole my countries!

[rasmits]

Originally Posted by AWR What's the demand look like in France?

I've got a few friends who can't wait to get one. I've also seen a few of those Prada phones, so there's obviously a demand for phones of this genre. I think it'll be pretty successful.

I'm not getting one, but I can't wait to finally play with one!

[Dorian Gray]

Originally Posted by rasmits I guess I don't understand why, if Apple partnered with Orange in France, they wouldn't use Orange in the UK too? Orange operates in many countries - Spain, Italy, Switzerland, etc. Why go country to country?

But would it matter much to Apple that they're dealing with companies with different names? Even if they had gone with Orange in the UK, they'd still have had to negotiate with Orange UK rather than Orange France.

I wish they had gone with Orange, or at least, anyone other than O2. O2 is the network of choice for lorry drivers and pubescent teens. They're cheap and tacky, and headquartered in Slough, which says all you need to know about them. And their data plans, to the extent that they exist at all, are horrendously overpriced. I can't imagine there is much overlap in the alpha-geek/iPhone demographic and the O2 demographic, but I guess that's what O2 wants to change.

[psmith2.0]

What are the other big UK outfits? Who would you see as a better fit (a non-lorry driving/prepubescent teen carrier)? Orange? Are there others?

I'm not up on UK cell carriers, so I'm asking out of sincere curiosity.

There's a city called Slough? On purpose? Or is that a local nickname and it's really called Twickleberryshire or something nicer sounding like that?

[BuonRotto]

I do have to admit, the European plans, their minutes anyway, are rather paltry compared to what we get here. Not to derail the thread too much, but are the 200 minutes typical for a European plan? Here, the typical plan starts at 450 minutes, with unlimited minutes after 9pm and on weekends, and usually now with calls made within the same carrier's network. The killer feature of the iPhone in the states was a good calling and data plan. It doesn't sound like the EU coutries thus far have that killer feature, though it might be a matter of perception/expectation.

[ghoti]

Originally Posted by rasmits I guess I don't understand why, if Apple partnered with Orange in France, they wouldn't use Orange in the UK too? Orange operates in many countries - Spain, Italy, Switzerland, etc. Why go country to country?

I guess they want to spread the risk a bit. They could have gone with T-Mobile across the US, UK, France, Germany, and a lot of other countries. But why give one company so much power over your product? It looks like T-Mobile will be the provider for a few smaller countries too (like Austria and a few of its neighboring countries), at least according to rumors. But still, having a bunch of different providers, who are also competitors in several countries, is probably a good "divide and conquer"-type strategy.

[ghoti]

Originally Posted by BuonRotto I do have to admit, the European plans, their minutes anyway, are rather paltry compared to what we get here. Not to derail the thread too much, but are the 200 minutes typical for a European plan? Here, the typical plan starts at 450 minutes, with unlimited minutes after 9pm and on weekends, and usually now with calls made within the same carrier's network.

In Europe, you don't pay or use minutes when you get called. So those minutes last a lot longer. Also, calls within the network have been free or extremely cheap (not everything is measured in minutes) on many networks for a long time. You have to look at more than just the minutes here.

[Electric Monk]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 What are the other big UK outfits?

Orange, Vodafone, 3 (3G only), and T-Mobile.

Assuming T-Mobile is out because they want (at least for opening launch) different operators in different European countries that leaves Vodafone or Orange, and Orange has some really bad customer relation issues right about now.

[AWR]

It strikes me that Slough is the setting for the original Office series (or am I lost).

[Dorian Gray]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Who would you see as a better fit (a non-lorry driving/prepubescent teen carrier)?

I suppose I exaggerated a little bit, but to be honest I've never met a lorry driver who hasn't been on O2. It just seems to be a part of the job, along with the overhanging gut and bad back.

But O2 competes on price alone. They'll sell absolutely anything the device manufacturers will offer them and they don't care a whit about branding their phones, or locking them, or anything like that (which is a good thing for the customer, but shows how small a part brand value plays in their success). Their data charges are very high, as are their international roaming charges, but they give you quite a lot of national minutes and texts for your money. Their ads are tacky and ridiculous, but I suppose they know their market because I believe they're marginally the largest operator in the UK (the big four have divided up their share of the market roughly evenly, but I believe O2 is marginally ahead, due to the aforementioned teens on Pay As You Go, no doubt). But I've used all of the big four and O2 were by far the least satisfactory. A couple of years ago they didn't even support text receipts (perhaps still the case?), so you had no idea whether your message was delivered or not.

Orange and Vodafone have historically been the brand-heavy networks. They try to offer a very comprehensive service with their own branded features. Orange in particular are very picky in choosing which devices to sell, testing them on their network first and then writing their own, vastly superior, manual for the device, rather than just bundling the incomprehensible gibberish from the device manufacturer. Orange and Vodafone are popular with businesses.

T-Mobile fall somewhere in between. They took over One-2-One's weak network and invested heavily in new towers a few years ago, spending over £2 million per day on infrastructure. They've then flogged this network capacity to "virtual operators" such as Virgin Mobile, as well as running a full service themselves.

The reason I thought Orange might have had a chance with the iPhone is that they have by far the largest EDGE network in the UK, and the iPhone uses EDGE. O2's EDGE network is nearly non-existent, so using the first-gen iPhone for actually surfing the net is going to be interesting. But everyone knows that the first-gen iPhone is only the beginning, so I'm sure the carriers were competing for future models that will actually work properly on the UK's network technology.

Originally Posted by Electric Monk Orange has some really bad customer relation issues right about now.

That's because of their broadband internet operation, not their mobile network, which continues to have the highest customer satisfaction figures in the industry, and deservedly so. But they bought Wanadoo, which was by far the worst ISP in the country, and tried to fit it into the Orange brand, a mistake of epic proportions that has sullied their network brand.

Originally Posted by AWR It strikes me that Slough is the setting for the original Office series (or am I lost).

Indeed! And presumably because it would be hard to find a more humourless and depressing town in the country.

[psmith2.0]

Good, helpful answer. Thank you. I just didn't know the UK mobile phone situation; and now I do...

[BuonRotto]

Ditto. Thanks for the 4-1-1, as the kids over here say (stupidly).