Following on yesterday’s news that Orange Uk will start selling iPhone … ending O2 / Telefonica’s virtual monopoly in the UK. Today, Vodafone in UK and Ireland  announced their plans to sell Apple iPhones.

Good news for the operators? well ending the monopoly of iPhone was a good move. An operator with a data usage strategy will want to be selling iPhones along side other data hungry phones like RIM, Android, Symbian devices.

Many first mover customers coming out of their 24 month agreements on the iPhone 2G will be happy to wait a few months, but 3G and 3GS users probably will be waiting another 12 – 24 months.

For Christmas does this mean an Apple under the tree??? I don’t think so.