iPhone 3G launch info roundup: Europe, India, South America

By Aidan Malley

A flurry of information about Apple's iPhone 3G launches in key parts of the world has surfaced on Thursday, including when Belgium will announce its iPhone release date, pre-registrations and even pre-orders are taking place in multiple countries, and more than one carrier has accidentally slipped rough details of its iPhone service plans.Belgium to learn more iPhone details soon

While Belgium wasn't included in the initial batch of 22 countries receiving iPhone 3G on July 11th, residents won't have long to wait until they learn when they can buy the device themselves, says a report from the country's news outlet De Redactie.

The exclusive Belgian carrier, Mobistar, plans to announce issue a release date on July 4th, with the actual launch to take place sometime during the summer.

Pre-registrations take place in Colombia, Germany, India

Meanwhile, potential iPhone subscribers in two countries scheduled to receive the Apple handset later in the year now have the option to receive updates.

Colombians, who will get the phone through COMCEL, can sign up on a teaser page to be called or e-mailed when more information on the iPhone is available.

Simultaneously, Indians can pre-register through Vodafone, either through a website or through a text message to the carrier.

The most elaborate signup campaign, however, is taking place in Germany.

T-Mobile in its home country has started taking registrations through its official iPhone website. Customers can pick a particular iPhone model and plan and register the choices with T-Mobile to streamline the launch on July 11th.

Mexico, Sweden providers leak iPhone plans

Mexicans and Swedes are now aware of some details of their iPhone plans, even if the relevant carriers haven't made any official announcements.

Extracted, hidden code from Telcel's website (obtained by Ayudamemac) reveals four contract plans for Mexican iPhone users: $36 US, $49 US, $59 US, and $79 US plans offer between 200 and 700 minutes per month respectively along with between 100 to 250 SMS text messages.

However, only the top plan offers unlimited data; the lesser plans are capped at between 100MB to 200MB of data per month.

The iPhones themselves are also purportedly more expensive, with the least expensive plan asking a customer to pay the equivalent of $311 US for an 8GB iPhone. That same phone is free on the $79 monthly plan, while the 16GB model sells for $433 on a basic plan and $122 on the top plan.

In a less complete leak, TeliaSonera Sweden has inadvertently posted its own page which lists three plans.

The page has only placeholders for the prices of each plan and the phone itself, but indicates that an iMidi plan will have just 100 minutes of call time per month, 100 SMS messages, and 100MB of data. An iMidi plan offers 250 minutes, 250 messages, and 250MB of data, while an iMaxi plan quadruples all of these to 1000 each.