PARIS, Nov. 20 — Last month, French law forced Apple to promise that consumers could buy a version of its iPhonein this country without having to be locked into a long-term contract
with Orange, the only mobile phone operator offering the new device.
Now, the same issue is tripping up Apple’s plans to sell the
music-playing cellphone in Germany, the largest European telephone
market. Last week, the Vodafone Group won the first round of a legal case against T-Mobile over its exclusive deal to sell the iPhone there.
A German court ruled that T-Mobile must offer the iPhone to
everyone, even without the 24-month contract that it had required for
buyers of the phone, which went on sale in Germany for 399 euros ($591)
on Nov. 9. T-Mobile is appealing the ruling.
Vodafone of Britain
had tried to secure its own pan-European exclusive deal with Apple for
the iPhone. A spokesman, Simon Gordon, said the company was not trying
to block the sale of the device but rather trying to level the playing
field in Germany. Vodafone operates Vodafone Germany, the No. 2 German
carrier. T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, is the industry leader there, with 34 million customers.
Various
European countries have laws that protect consumers from being forced
to buy something else as a condition of buying a product. Britain does
not have the same kind of restrictions, allowing O2, a mobile network
operator owned by Telefónica of Spain, to sell the iPhone there with an 18-month exclusive contract.
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