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Well, I had a great respect for Apple and for their business transactions, until this iPhone stuff came up. It is really badly handled, and I wonder if it does not even violate anti-trust legislations.
When a service provider is given monopoly, it is very important that they treat their customers fairly.

Germany was the first country to file a case against Apple on this, and Apple replied by selling an unlocked phone to a ridiculous price. I took some time, but Germany is now quite fair in pricing. You can get a 3G iPhone for 1 Euro, when locking it to a so-so fair deal.

Sweden had to wait. It felt stupid, like the machine would be out of date already when being released! I guess Apple was cocky and demanded too much, so the providers were not interested.

But now it will come, on July 11th. The Swedish giant Telia has the sole rights, and just like AT&T they are misusing their monopoly. Sweden is normally a cheap internet country, I have a new Sony Eriksson 3G for less than USD 75, and one of the most expensive deals. I pay about USD 75 per month on a 2-year deal, but with unlimited national telephone calls (also to cell phones), unlimited text traffic and unlimited data traffic. It is enough to give me an internet conection in even the most remote areas.

The iPhone is announced to cost about USD 540 in Sweden, if the plan at all should be worth mentioning. But there is no fair plan, because all the plans are limited, based on that Telia will get additional revenues from the traffic exceeding the plans. A plan may cost up to USD 140:- per month for 24 months, and still be so limited so you will have to use excess traffic for it to be useful. That will cost up to USD 11.25 per day! There is a “Mini” plan, enabling you to buy the phone as cheap as USD 275:-, but that is tied to 24 months and you can do almost nothing with it except for looking at it, because it will be too expensive to use it.

The iPhone is a wonderful piece of engineering, it is just a pity that the whole thing should be spoiled by monopoly and greed! It is significant that about 10% of the old version iPhones are sold to China, where an approved provider does not even exist!

So the best choice is still to buy one abroad, crack it and use it with any provider!