Euro iPhone unlock options grow

One week after T-Mobile Germany unveiled their plans to sell an unlocked version of the iPhone for €999, in doing so satisfying an anti-competition ruling engineered by Vodafone and prompting a flurry of interest in what could prove to be an alternative unlock method, comes news regarding France Telecom's intention to offer more flexibility as to which SIM can be used in the Orange iPhone.  CEO Didier Lombard is quoted as claiming the device will be priced at "over 500 euros, but well below 1,000 euros" which would put it in the $740 to $1,500 range; meanwhile, there are suggestions that Orange will, for a price, unlock a French iPhone soon after purchase.

MacScoop reports that for around €100 France Telecom will remove the SIM lock from the iPhone, allowing those who do large amounts of travel to use local SIM cards in their handset and thus avoid high roaming charges.  However that fee does not break the two-year contract, meaning that although you could use another carrier's service you'd still be paying Orange a monthly fee.

Lombard has said that service plans for the handset - which will be priced at €399 - will start from €49 a month; the full details of contract options have already been leaked by iphone.orange.fr

The news comes as German MVNO Debitel (who buy wholesale airtime from the T-Mobile Germany network) revealed it intends to offer a €600 rebate for customers who buy an iPhone from official network T-Mobile but take out a service plan with Debitel instead.  This rebate would bring the cellphone back down to the cost of a handset locked into the usual two-year contract, but Debitel are offering a monthly plan that, with the same amount of inclusive text messages and minutes, undercuts the T-Mobile plan by €9.  That adds up to €216 ($320) over the life of the contract.