
It appears (potentially due to the built in Nokia Ovi music store support) that the UK mobile phone network operators have not been too keen on the N81, with The UK Mobile Report reporting that instead of the usual fight between operators to be granted an exclusive for a particular phone (eg Vodafone have the exclusive on the Nokia 6110 Navigator at the moment), Vodafone were the only operator interested in the N81, and then only in N81 8Gb format.
This is interesting – with Nokia pushing Ovi, MOSH, and other new services direct to its customers, the network operators are either going to have to embrace this and accept it, continue to demand phones with features removed (and I think Nokia has stood it’s ground with the N81), or start losing control of the handset market, and moving towards the mobile phone manufacturers selling direct.
This is happening in the US – you can buy Nokia and some Motorola phones direct from the companies, without involvement of your operator, and it appears the US may well move much closer to this model for all phones. In the UK (and Europe), we are used to being able to buy “SIM-Free” phones, but the cost is much higher.
I wonder if we’ll start to see the manufacturers subsidising the phones, based on services they provide, instead of the operator subsidising the phone…
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