Vodafone's announcement of the iPhone took many by surprise, and while details are scant, what they're saying is still quite revealing.

Vodafone's announcement that it would be selling the iPhone in Australia (as well as ten other markets) yesterday took a lot of people by surprise – possibly none more so than Apple themselves, as they've once again bunkered down behind a big shield with “no comment” written upon it.

And while the initial release was scant on detail – and even Australian CEO Russell Hewitt's comments on the announcement are scattered with the kind of bland PR speak that usually adorns this kind of statement – there are still a few nuggets of interest there.

Firstly, the issue of exclusivity. A number of other pundits have leapt upon the detail that one of the countries mentioned in Vodafone's release was Italy, and in that market, Vodafone won't be alone in flogging the iPhone, with Telecom Italia also on track to sell Apple's licence to print money... ahem.. iPhone.

But to be honest, you don't need to look to the land of leaning towers and tasty pasta to essentially confirm this; it's all in Hewitt's statement to begin with.

Vodafone, he said, was “enormously pleased to be included in the agreement to sell the iPhone to our customers later this year”. I'm sure he was indeed happy, but the use of “included” pretty much seals the deal – Vodafone won't be selling the thing exclusively. To be frank, if they were, even if they had no details on pricing, availability or model, don't you think they'd be shouting it from the rooftops anyway?

In a way, of course, they are shouting it regardless,and it's a canny enough move to grab as much market share as possible by tying in the highly consumer desirable iPhone to the Vodafone brand. I've got to wonder how far they can carry this; Vodafone's been notable for pushing its brand onto handsets a little more vigorously than most other carriers, including a very standard (and almost iPhone-like) Vodafone interface, and the inclusion of little Vodafone logos somewhere on the phone body. Somehow, I doubt that last part will make it to the Voda-Iphone.

Then there's the issue of which model iPhone Vodafone will be selling. Vodafone is less likely to try to shift the existing 2G model, if only because they don't run an EDGE network -- only Telstra in Australia does.

If they're not the exclusive carrier and Telstra is, then they'll get slaughtered in sales as soon as Telstra starts selling iPhones on the promise of the fastest possible (2G) iPhone performance. Still, stranger and stupider things have happened in the world of mobile telephony.

Again, though, there's something of a pointer to the 3G model, not just because that's where Vodafone has its marbles at the moment. It's down to the non-existence of a release date. If you were going to launch the existing model – one which plenty of Australians have already imported and unlocked – why wouldn't you do it sooner rather than later?

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