Exactly ^

Not to sound like a broken record but I believe all Nokia wants is the same relationship with a carrier as Apple has with a carrier.
From what I could see, Apple dictated the terms to AT&T not the other way around.

In the US this was very unusual. Typically a carrier either tweaked a manufacturers offering or put the specs it wanted in a device out for bids, if you will. In a lot of cases it was the manufactures themselves that came up with various schemes that carriers could use to increase ARPU.

Apple changed all that using the leverage of its brand along with a device that exceeded everyone’s expectations and pro'ly pitched by its well known and respected CEO. They have a unique relationship with AT&T and I'm sure carriers want to keep it that way... unique. All other device manufacturers must play by the old rules. This gives Apple a huge advantage over everyone else.

Then Nokia comes along and exceeds everyone’s expectations with the N900. A subsidy deal may still come but none of the usual sources have seen any sales collateral yet so it may not be very soon. It sounds like Nokia didn’t expect anything with this “step” anyway. The N900 may have opened a lot of previously closed doors for a harmatten device though.

Does anybody else think this thread's title needs to be changed. Nokia finding “it difficult to form network partnerships” is a quite a bit different than “networks rejecting” devices. If a phone in the US has a carriers correctly provisioned SIM and the device itself is capable of the networks frequencies, it can’t be rejected. It may not have access to network SMS and MMS gateways or other server side services but the correct IP addy’s could be added later.