iPhone requires Apple servers on network?

Speaking in an annual results webcast yesterday, Charles Dunstone, CEO of Carphone Warehouse, a European retailer of mobile phones and services, claimed that in order for the iPhone to function correctly, Apple servers must be placed “deep into the [operator’s] network.” Dunstone was responding to a question on whether his company had been in talks with Apple over the handset, or if there would be a network-specific deal like in the US. He replied: “It has to be in some form a deal with a network, because the way the iPhone works requires the operator to install a lot of servers and stuff deep into the network to supply some of the services to it. So if you buy the phone, say on Cingular in the US, and put a T-Mobile SIM [card] in it, it won’t work properly because T-Mobile won’t have all this proprietary stuff. So the first thing they have to do is do a deal with a network. I don’t think they’ve done that yet.” [via SeekingAlpha]