5 December 2007
Mobile provider Vodafone has lost a court case to stop its rival T-Mobile gaining the exclusive rights to Apple's much-sought after iPhone.
The German court case came as a result of allegations of unfair competition by Vodafone, which claimed that customers should have the right to choose between networks.
The decision now overturns a temporary court injunction which forced T-Mobile to sell the device without it being tied to a single network.
T-Mobile has been selling the handsets since the injunction without a network contract for €999 (£719), far more than the €399 cost of a two-year T-Mobile contract.
The mobile phone provider has now said that it will unlock the phone at the end of the two year contract with no extra fee.
Apple has sold more than 1.4 million iPhones globally since the gadget's US launch in June.
The California-based technology giant hopes to sell ten million more handsets during 2008.