Nokia Siemens to benefit from Iphone

MULTIPLE PRESS reports point towards Telefonica/O2 as the winner in the race for Apple's Iphone in the UK, beating Vodafone.

So O2 has developed a sudden need for an EDGE (2.75G) capability. Nokia Siemens is the obvious supplier.

The rumours are that Apple has picked its partners on a purely numerical basis - going for the operator with the most subscribers in a particular country. So it's O2 in the UK, T-Mobile in Germany and France Telecom/Orange in France.

Apple seems to have abandoned plans for a pan-European launch for the Iphone and will restrict itself to just the three markets before Xmas 2007. Other major European markets will be tackled in 2008.

Vodafone was thought by some to be the frontrunner in the Iphone race. But as the INQ pointed out here, all four networks were actually in the running.

Picking O2 does make sense since it has surpassed Virgin Mobile as the UK operator most closely associated with music thanks to its acquisition of the Dome - now known as the O2.

O2 also has a portal dedicated to music fans in the shape of the Blueroom.

An EDGE capability would in theory provide the Iphone with a download rate of 473 Kbit/s. Given that GPRS doesn't reach anything like its claimed top speed, the INQ reckons that a true throughput of 150 Kbit/s is about right.

Nokia Siemens is the prime candidate to supply O2 UK with an EDGE capability for several reasons. Firstly, it claims to be "the indisputable leader in EDGE today with 120 commercial networks."

Which would be pretty good enough on its own aside from the fact that it has only just announced it will be supplying O2 Slovakia with an EDGE capable network. So that's O2 tipped as the Iphone supplier for Slovakia, then.

O2 Ireland is a bit of a mystery, though. It has only just announced a contract with Ericsson to install a true 3.5G network so dumbing it down to 2.75G as well makes little sense.

If O2 is going to the trouble of supporting EDGE just for the Iphone, the INQ reasons that Apple will have to bite the bullet and built some kind of support for Java - probably MIDP - into the Iphone in order for operators to flog subscribers their games.

The INQ notes that as far as ringtones goes, Apple will be attempting to get owners to download them specially from the Itunes store. It will be interesting to see what operators like O2 make of that. µ

L'INQ
Blueroom
Nokia Siemens