Late last fall, Vodafone successfully persuaded a German court to bar T-Mobile from selling locked iPhones in Germany, arguing that purchasers of Apple's smartphone should be able to choose any carrier. Don't expect the company to hold to those open-access beliefs now. Vodafone today announced it has signed an agreement to become the new service provider for Apple iPhones in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. No details on pricing or whether Vodafone will sell a long-rumored new version of the iPhone that will run on Vodafone's higher-speed 3G networks.

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