Deutsche Telekom has won its battle with Vodafone over whether its mobile subsidiary T-Mobile can sell a ‘locked’ iPhone in Germany. A German court today ruled that T-Mobile can make customers who buy the device take out a T-Mobile contract and may continue to offer the device with a locked SIM card. A locked card prevents the device from being used on rival networks.
Last month Vodafone won a temporary court injunction preventing T-Mobile from locking the iPhone’s SIM card and offering it only in combination with a T-Mobile contract. T-Mobile today said it planned to return to its original sales conditions for the iPhone as soon as possible. Under the temporary injunction, the German mobile operator had been selling an unlocked version of the handset at €999.