O2 to lose UK iPhone exclusivity, a reason for the rest of us to hope?
By Ronald O Carlson
Half a world away, one of Apple’s lesser wireless network partners apparently won’t get to keep its exclusive iPhone distribution deal. Does this news offer long-suffering AT&T users here in the land of milk and Honey Nut Cheerios any hope?
The Telegraph (U.K.) reports that Apple’s wireless partner in the United Kingdom, O2, will lose iPhone exclusivity on Oct. 9. Their write up notes, with due irony, that the news comes on the day that the carrier’s network went down for the third time in a single month, sparking a bitter glimmer of hope among the company’s many dissatisfied subscribers.
Complaints by iPhone users in the U.K. have a familiar ring to them: 1.) slow network speeds, nowhere near the theoretical maximums, 2.) poor network reliability even in high-density urban settings, and 3.) regular network outages that tens of thousands of users without internet or email access.
Further, O2’s responses to outages and poor quality of service also sound familiar notes: “Our 3G network today covers 84 percent of the U.K. population. We have rolled out our network based on where we see demand and usage and concentrate on depth and quality … Independent testing has shown that our network is comparable if not stronger than other operators.”
The song remains the same…
The obvious connection here is that because O2’s service is so poor, the company is losing the exclusive right to sell and service the iPhone in the UK. Moreover, there’s a specific end date and it’s not too far off in the future, close enough in fact for the most abused users to sense a little hope.
Although we don’t know what terms AT&T has wrung from Apple, given the carrier’s poor record on service and feature rollouts, is it even remotely possible that Ma Bell will likewise lose exclusivity any time soon?
Yes, there have been persistent rumors that Apple’s upcoming Mac touch (aka iPod touch on steroids) will be available on the Verizon, the blogsphere has been depressingly free of rumors about multi-carrier iPhone availability in the U.S…
Dare we hope for relief?
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Stumble It!
August 7th, 2009
As has been pointed out many times before, there is as near to zero as makes no difference chance that Apple will use Verizon at this point in time, since it is illogical for Apple to produce a CDMA handset when all the rest of their markets use GSM/UTMS and CDMA is already practically ‘end-of-life’.
There might be a possibility of Apple adding other GSM providers in the US, just like here in the UK it is looking like one or more other GSM provider is going to get the iPhone.
Again it has already been pointed out that at some point in the future when 4G networks are rolled out, Verizon might be in with a chance then since they and other 4G networks will then all be using the same standards. This would logically encourage Verizon in order to have a better chance of winning the iPhone (4G) to be be much more aggressive at rolling out a 4G upgrade for their network than is usual for your typical fat and lazy network carrier.
Personally, I don’t see the likelihood of a 4G network here in the UK for FOUR years at least, and even in the US at least TWO years (to get even a modest level of coverage).
August 7th, 2009
It doesn’t surprise me that O2 could lose the contract, their service is rubbish.
My dad bought an unlocked iPhone from play.com (they were clearing stocks of the iPhone 3G before the release of the 3G S) and uses his iPhone on t-mobile with no problems. Never had a problem with connection anywhere. And yes, it is perfectly legal and not jailbroken.
Without network exclusivity, the iPhone could dominate the market without a shadow of a doubt. A common reason for people not choosing the iPhone is simply down to the lack of choice in network. For this reason, I argue that network exclusivity could be a good thing as it allows competition between manufacturers still. How would high end smartphone companies fare otherwise? The LG Arena vs the iPhone? One winner every time in the eye of the consumer.