What if I unlock an iPhone and later my operator become the iPhone distributor?

[gero]

Hi,

Because the iPhone is still not available in The Netherlands I'm considering to get one from abroad and use for example ZiPhone to unlock it. That will probably work fine, but I was wondering what would happens it at some point in the future my mobile operator actually starts shipping the iPhone. At that point a new firmware version will be published and I can install that through iTunes. Do I then still need to unlock the phone or will it be immediately useable because my operator is now a legitimate iPhone operator?

Any ideas on this? Anyone in the UK, Germany, France already had this experience after buying an iPhone in the US and using it on Orange, 02, or T-Mobile before they became an iPhone distributor?

Regards,
Gero

[Draven]

I would say it would depend on where you get the iPhone. Technically whatever iPhone you get now wouldn't be for whatever carrier would start providing the iPhone in the Netherlands. Therefore, even then you would still need to use a jailbreaking software to unluck the phone. There would still be a benefit in the fact that if you were to gowith the iPhone carrier, you'll be able to get the specific iPhone data package. I don't know if that has any big effect, but it's a thought.