Nokia’s recently announced Lumia 920

Nokia’s recently announced Lumia 920 flagship Windows Phone 8 handset will be exclusively available through EE’s (formerly Everything Everywhere) newly unveiled 4G network for a limited time, according to reports.

Shortly after EE’s announcement of its new brand and 4G rollout, the company took to Twitter where it declared the Lumia 920 an ‘exclusive to @EE’.

The Verge has since talked to unnamed EE spokespeople who confirmed the flagship Lumia 920 would ‘have a period of exclusivity at launch’, suggesting that it could later hit other networks or become available as a SIM-free device.

Meanwhile, The Verge also quotes an anonymous source at Nokia who alleged the Lumia 920 ‘may’ land with other networks but stressed that the company is not ready to make any announcements just yet, implying perhaps that it is still in negotiations.

EE hasn’t yet unveiled when its 4G capable devices will be available, only stating that the 4G rollout had begun and more changes would happen ‘in the coming weeks’. Other handsets shown were the Lumia 820, HTC One XL, Huawei Ascend P1 LTE and Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE.

Periods of limited exclusivity aren’t a new phenomenon but they’re much more common in other industries and markets than the mobile space.

For example, it’s not at all unusual for some newly released games to be exclusive to Microsoft’s Xbox for a limited time of perhaps a few months before also being made available for Sony’s PS3 and PCs.

In the grand scheme of things we expect non-EE customers to get hold of the Lumia 920 eventually, however, whether this will be before other networks rollout their own 4G services or not, remains to be seen.