3. Multiple carriers in some countries. As Apple pushes forward to deliver the iPhone is 72 countries, it seems to have gotten overly enthusiastic in countries

3. Multiple carriers in some countries. As Apple pushes forward to deliver the iPhone is 72 countries, it seems to have gotten overly enthusiastic in countries like Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Australia, each of which has gotten not one, but two carriers offering the iPhone. So much for exclusive carrier deals. I can't speak for the others, but I haven't seen a single iPhone in Austria (in use, or in a shop; I know of a single person who owns one) so far, so maybe Apple isn't happy about T-Mobile's sales here. Not having 3G in a country with over 60% 3G coverage (and ~99% GSM coverage) probably hasn't helped so far, so maybe the new model will change things. The Austrian mobile phone market is heavily oversaturated, with more phones than inhabitants, so sales are presumably pretty hard to get. I haven't seen T-Mobile promoting the iPhone at all, although they do feature it prominently on their website. (http://t-mobile.at/ http://t-mobile.at/) The tariff of €39/month with a 2 year binding is very pricy, especially as text messages (SMS) are €0.25 each. (I pay €0.04 for text messages with no monthly fees) Of course, you're implicitly paying for the phone, but the whole deal just doesn't stack up well against the competition. You can get unlocked iPhones on ebay for €400-500, although I'm very wary of those - no idea if they can still be updated to the latest firmware. Also, shared data/voice plans are very expensive here, much more than getting separate data and voice SIMs, which isn't particularly useful with the iPhone.