France Telecom's Orange to carry iPhone In France

[AppleInsider]

France Telecom confirmed Thursday its wireless arm Orange has signed an agreement with Apple to distribute the Apple iPhone in France.

"We have signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone," a spokeswoman for the carrier told Dow Jones, adding that the company will start selling the combined mobile phone and media player in November, without giving a precise date for the launch.

Apple recently held press events in both the UK and Germany to announce availability of the handset in those regions, but has not done so yet in France.

Thus far there is no mention of the deal on Apple's website or France Telecom's.

Apple has said that it will launch iPhone in the U.K. and Germany on November 9. Presumably, the French roll-out would take place around the same time.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[anantksundaram]

I used Orange extensively on my iPhone on a trip to France. It is an outstanding service, with very impressive EDGE speeds.

[melgross]

Possibly Apple hadn't made an announcement because Visual Voicemail isn't in place yet.

[Lazereth]

If no-one had noticed, Apple is signed with the incumbant national operator for each country.
Orange aka France Telecom, O2 aka BT, T-Mobile = Deutsche Telecom - If i were to guess, for Netherlands it will be KPN, Italy would be TIM and Spain Telefonica, Belgacom for Belgium.

For obvious reasons to be honest - if you are in bed with the national operator, you can undercut the competition quite dramatically.

I would imagine that once this is known Vodafone's share price is going to plummet

Just my 2 Cents of course.

[ajmas]

If you visit http://www.orange.fr/ you will see it is suffering from portalitis (a disease affecting sites where everything is there, including some else's kitchen sink, except what you wanted from it).

If you look it is announced there, but it is lost in the news section: announcement

[Lazereth]

by the way - from the article posted, the release date is November 9th - what a surprise that is?

[ajmas]

Originally Posted by Lazereth

by the way - from the article posted, the release date is November 9th - what a surprise that is?

Both articles indicate that Gemany and UK release date are 9th November, but in France it would be "before Christmas, probably in November". Chances are Apple will want to esnure the same release date, but nothing has been formally announced.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

I used Orange extensively on my iPhone on a trip to France. It is an outstanding service, with very impressive EDGE speeds.

How did you do that, and what did that cost you?

[JimDreamworx]

Apple is able to get the iPhone out in Europe, but Canada's duopoly (more correctly, monopoly for the type of network controlled by Rogers) is showing the world what an embarrassment mobile telecommunications are in the Great White North.

[freelander51]

Originally Posted by Lazereth

O2 aka BT

Didnt Telefonica buy O2 ?

[freelander51]

Originally Posted by ajmas

is suffering from portalitis (a disease affecting sites where everything is there, including some else's kitchen sink, except what you wanted from it).

Well Orange is an ISP as well and that is the portal page (as well)- but I agree that you should make your portal sites easier to understand

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

How did you do that, and what did that cost you?

Oh man..... you had to ask, didn't you.... the saga is chronicled here:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=77415

(The service itself was fantastic, but the ATT bill... well, that was something else.)

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by Lazereth

...Belgacom for Belgium.

From what I've heard/read, I don't think Belgium's gonna happen.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by freelander51

Didnt Telefonica buy O2 ?

Yes, O2 is owned by Telefonica.

[Titan10]

Originally Posted by freelander51

Didnt Telefonica buy O2 ?

Telefonica own Tim (Italy) as well

[SpinDrift]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

I used Orange extensively on my iPhone on a trip to France. It is an outstanding service, with very impressive EDGE speeds.

That's why Orange would have been the best choice in the UK too. Orange has a very extensive EDGE network in the UK too. I'm a bit peed off that 02 bent over and shafted Orange for the UK deal. I probably won't even be able to get 02 EDGE where I am, but I get full Orange EDGE and 3G all around my area.

[ZO]

Good news for me.

I already unlocked my iPhone and am using it with Orange here in France but there are still a few glitches.

For example I don't get SMS alert when I have a new message in my voicemail. This is annoying as hell since I've already missed half a dozen messages and now periodically call my voicemail twice a day just to make sure.

Does anyone think I will be able to register with Orange through iTunes if I restore the firmware or will have Apple sent each Operator a list of MAC addresses of US sold iPhones?

That would be a bastard move on Apple's part.

[Electric Monk]

Originally Posted by JimDreamworx

Apple is able to get the iPhone out in Europe, but Canada's duopoly (more correctly, monopoly for the type of network controlled by Rogers) is showing the world what an embarrassment mobile telecommunications are in the Great White North.

We're actually dead last in the developed world on everything: network coverage/quality/speed, time it takes to get handsets, how advanced our handsets are, cost, everything.

It's truly sad that even with a (nominally) conservative government in federal power we still can't get some foreign competition in the telecom sector.

[Fairly]

This is terrible news. Orange France are a horrendously mismanaged company with at present insurmountable infrastructure issues. No one there who knows anything uses them. They're close to the equivalent of AOL today in terms of quality of service.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by Fairly

This is terrible news. Orange France are a horrendously mismanaged company with at present insurmountable infrastructure issues. No one there who knows anything uses them. They're close to the equivalent of AOL today in terms of quality of service.

If true, that's not too surprising. Apple seems to be doing deals on the basis of who's willing to accept the deal Apple offers, not on who's the best carrier.

Look at the US... ATT is mid-pack at best, quality-wise. But they were willing to accept Apple's terms, Verizon wasn't back then. It'll be very nice when the exclusives (everywhere) run out and you start having some carrier choice with the iPhone.

Of course, there is the whole '3rd party solutions which unlock the iPhone' thing...

.

[Electric Monk]

Originally Posted by Fairly

This is terrible news. Orange France are a horrendously mismanaged company with at present insurmountable infrastructure issues. No one there who knows anything uses them. They're close to the equivalent of AOL today in terms of quality of service.

They also own ~45% of the French mobile market (IIRC).

Apple wants companies to accept their deal, certainly, but they also want the most possible reach.

They seriously considered only Verizon & AT&T in the States. The UK's Big 4[1] telecoms are all about the same size (and yet they still went with the largest and, arguably, the shoddiest—O2), and T-Mobile Germany (largest in Germany, with Vodafone their only reasonably sized rival).

I'm not saying that Jobs was lying when he said Apple picked telecoms based on their 'culture' but I'd argue that it's mostly about a) who's the biggest, and b) who offers Apple the most money.