iPhone Love, Italian-Style

If reports in the Rome daily newspaper La Repubblica are true — and I’ve never known a Rome news daily to mislead me, not ever — than the iPhone should be making its Italian debut. That would add Italy to the ranks of the U.K., Germany, France, Ireland, and — one of these days — Austria.

But that’s not the big story here. I mean, the iPhone coming to another country? Pfffft — it’s been done.

No, the eyebrow-raising details are to be found elsewhere in the La Repubblica report. The newspaper says that Telecom Italia’s deal to distribute the iPhone is of the nonexclusive variety, meaning other carriers could also offer the iPhone. That would make Apple’s arrangement in Italy different from its deals in… let me just double-check here… everywhere.

Should you be feeling the slightest twinge of envy at the freedom allegedly to be enjoyed by Italian iPhone consumers, realize that non-exclusivity will come with an apparent price. La Repubblica reports that the iPhone will be sold at a higher price in Italy than in other markets to compensate for the lack of revenue sharing.

But even that’s not the entire story. The newspaper also says the agreement calls for the distribution of iPhones compatible with 3G networks. Again, this would be quite the change from the iPhones currently available in other markets.

You can read what I assume to be the original La Repubblica story here. However, if your fluency in Italian is as non-existent as mine, perhaps you’d be more comfortable with the wire story we reprinted at Macworld. It has all the details, including this nugget about the 3G aspect:

The deal reflects Italy’s lead in 3G penetration and mobile Internet navigation, with Telecom Italia having more than double the number of 3G users than the principal mobile phone operators in France, Britain and Spain, the paper said.

We suspect that this will only ramp up speculation about the 3G iPhone’s imminent arrival by just a scosch.

Category: News

Posted by Philip Michaels on Apr 22 2008, 1:33 PM ET

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