Orange has revealed that over 63,000 fans have signed up to Orange's iPhone sub-site to show register their interest in Apple's mobile.

To celebrate the French debut of the device, Orange will be holding late-night openings at 12 of its stores, when the iPhone is unveiled on Wednesday November 28, 2007.

Bordeaux, Lille, Lyons, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nancy, Nice, Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg and Toulouse will be welcoming iPhone fans from 6.30pm onwards.

In Paris, Orange will inaugurate the launch of its brand new store at 125, avenue des Champs-Elysées.

Orange has developed a range of four "Orange for iPhone" plans. All four plans include Visual Voicemail and "unlimited" access to email and the internet.

Under that good old "unlimited" tag is that fact that modem access, VoIP calling, peer to peer and "newsgroups" usage is "strictly forbidden" - and it's limited to 500MB a month.

The plans range in price from 49 euros to 119 euros per month, with the iPhone costing 399 euros.

And, as has been reported extensively, Orange is also offering iPhone as a standalone handset, without a contract.

An Orange version will be on sale at 549 euros for anyone who wants to buy the phone and use it on another (i.e., not iPhone specific) Orange contract.

The will also be a price of 649 euros for another version that can be used on any network, but to then get it officially unlocked by Orange, there will be an additional charge of 100 euros, bring the total to 749.

This 649/749 price difference suggests that Orange is fully aware that people could buy the 649 euro version and unlock it via unofficial channels, otherwise they would have just offered the 749 option.

The 749 euro officially unlocked version is cheaper that the German T-Mobile's 999 euro price tag and possibly tempting to UK iPhone fans who might well consider crossing the Channel to nab one...