At 6:02 pm local time today, the iPhone goes on sale in Britain at Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores. In spite of the rain and cold, customers began lining up at the Apple store on Regent Street in London fully 24 hours ahead of time. The iPhone can only be used on the O2 network, and requires a contract costing $70 a month, which is after customers have paid around $540 for the handset itself. Writing on The Unofficial Apple Weblog, customer Nik Fletcher noted, “Eventually, we settled down for a night by the store, with people constantly asking us: "What are we queueing for, or why we were queueing at all?" Folks of varying soberness, and sanity (ourselves included there) passed by, including two local community support officers who ensured we were keeping the peace (and of course, play with the iPhone that just happened to be around).” Meanwhile, Netnames’ Envision brand protection unit has found that 62% of iPhones offered on the UK eBay site were from UK sellers, although the phone has yet to go on sale there, and 70% of those offered for sale were advertised as ‘unlocked,’ according to a report on vnunet.com. These sales highlight the grey market traders and those selling fake products. "Consumers need to be aware of the threats posed by counterfeit goods and grey market imports online and make sure that they purchase only from reputable sources," Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer at NetNames, told vnunet.com.
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