O2 and the iPhone: Suppose they gave a party and nobody came?

More than 1,400 staff members (including 700 "brand" new employees taken on especially to man (and woman) call centres in Glasgow and Leeds), have been put in place to deal with the expected frenzy on Friday as crazed customers besiege O2, desperate to get their hands on the iconic handset at almost any price - which is exactly what they will be paying. The other 700 have been recruited to fill vacancies at the operator's High Street shops. The device will also be available to buy from Carphone Warehouse outlets.

O2 won the battle to be the carrier exclusively sanctioned by the at nice Mr. Jobs to provide service to the iPhone, much to the chagrin of Vodafone. Before the announcement that O2 had got the deal, Vodafone had been eulogising endlessly about the benefits, capabilities and sheer design-excellence of the device, but then suddenly changed its tune and, in as overt an example of corporate sour grapes seen in many a year, suddenly began to complain that the handset is expensive, over-hyped and not 3G-enabled.

All these criticisms are true, but that hasn't prevented the iPhone becoming the most sought-after and talked-about handset in the history of mobile telephony, and O2 is determined that there shall be no repeat of the customer service glitches that struck AT&T and marred the the iPhone's launch in the US on June 1 this year.

However, despite the early hitches and teething troubles, more than a million iPhones were sold in America over the first two months that the device was available.