09/19/2007, 3:25am, EDT
Wednesday, September 19thiPhone coming to Germany via T-Mobile on Nov 9 [u]
(Updated with official confirmation) Following its UK launch, Apple on Wednesday is expected to announce an agreement with T-Mobile to offer the iPhone in Germany. Supporting earlier reports, Dow Jones Newswire reports that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs will announce the company's iPhone carrier agreement with T-Mobile in Berlin at the German Telekom AG. On Tuesday, the CEO launched the new iPhone in the UK with O2, but said -- at the Q&A session following the launch -- that a faster 3G iPhone was still months away as the company balances battery life with expectations of customers. Update: Apple and T-Mobile officially announced that T-Mobile will be the exclusive German carrier of Apple’s iPhone when it makes its debut in Germany on November 9.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with T-Mobile to bring the iPhone to Germany,” said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. “Customer response to iPhone in the US has been incredible, and we can't wait to introduce T-Mobile customers to the most revolutionary mobile device on the planet.”
In addition to all the revolutionary features that made iPhone so popular in the US, iPhone users in Germany will have access to Apple's latest music offerings on iPhone including the recently launched iTunes® Wi-Fi Music Store. The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store offers customers the ability to browse, search, preview, purchase and download songs and albums from iTunes over the built-in Wi-Fi on their iPhone. No computer is required and when the customer connects their iPhone back with the PC or Mac, their music automatically syncs back into their iTunes library.
The T-Mobile network will also support iPhone’s unique Visual Voicemail feature, which enables users to immediately randomly access those messages that interest them most.
“We are convinced that we can get our customers excited about experiencing the mobile internet with the iPhone,” said Hamid Akhavan, CEO, T-Mobile International. “I am proud that Apple and T-Mobile have become partners. The best mobile device currently on the market will soon be operating on the best network in the country.”
By the end of 2007, Apple said that T-Mobile will be the only network operator in Germany to offer EDGE throughout its entire GSM network. EDGE, it claims, accelerates the mobile data transfer rate to over 220Kb/sec, which makes it almost four times as fast as ISDN in fixed-line networks. With EDGE, the German market leader offers its customers 100 percent broadband – anywhere and at any time. Offering 20,000 HotSpots worldwide, T-Mobile claims to be the biggest Wi-Fi provider in the world. Of those HotSpots, 8,600 are in Germany, where HotSpot users can achieve download speeds of up to 11MB/sec..
iPhone is scheduled to go on sale on November 9 and will be sold in Germany through Telekom Shops of Deutsche Telekom and the T-Mobile web shop. The iPhone requires a new 2-year T-Mobile tariff and will be available in an 8GB model for €399 including V.A.T.
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T-Mobile Germany obviously has a roaming agreement with T-Mobile US; therefore, just like you can roam with your US AT&T iPhone on, say, Vodafone in Spain, same way you'll be able to roam with T-Mobile Germany iPhone on T-Mobile (or AT&T) networks in the US.
This does not mean that since it is T-Mobile, there won't be roaming charges. My personal experience tells me that with a US T-Mobile phone, you pay hefty roaming charges when roaming on any of T-Mobile's national networks in Europe.
To make it clear; you don't need an unlocked phone if you're going to use your original SIMM and roam in another network. You DO need an unlocked phone if you are going to use a different SIMM card (even if the "mother ship" company is the same, such as T-Mobile, or Vodafone, etc), in a different country.
If the feature is being implemented network-wide..
Thoughts?
It's SIM not SIMM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_card