ISupply estimates manufacturing costs for Apple’s new high-speed iPhone totaled $173, compared with $265 for the original iPhone, released one year ago for about $500 with no subsidy. After what it called “component price reductions,” the initial iPhone carried a cost of $226.

“At … $173, the new iPhone is significantly less expensive to produce than the first-generation product, despite major improvements in the product’s functionality and unique usability, due to the addition of 3G communications,” said Dr. Jagdish Rebello, principal analyst for iSuppli.

The figures don’t include other costs, including software development, shipping and distribution, and packaging, iSuppli said.

With Apple now profiting even more per iPhone sold, it’s obvious why they chose to market their phone through only a select few exclusive service providers around the world. By sinking their teeth into a telecommunications giant like AT&T, Apple can make windfall profits, while still not alienating their buyers by making the outward price of the device much higher.

…according to AT&T spokesman, Mark A. Siegel, who spoke with iPhone Atlas earlier this week, AT&T will not be supporting a PAM plan for the iPhone 3G. The only available data plan for the iPhone will be the new $30 consumer unlimited data and visual voice mail plan and the $45 business data plan. The latter is charged when a person makes an enterprise type connection to Exchange or a Blackberry server for email or messaging.

So if you are an iPhone user, you will theoretically have to purchase a separate device with its own data plan to use on your laptop or other computer. Nonetheless, enterprising hackers developed (albeit complicated) methods for tethering the first-generation iPhone, and will likely produce similar options for the iPhone 3G.

Simple web browsing and email can of course be done on the iPhone itself, but more complicated internet tasks requiring a computer will not be aided by carrying around an iPhone.

From Now Apple has contracts with carriers in over 70 countries, all of which are preparing to sell the new iPhone 3G. A large and active grey market in unlocked iPhones no longer serves Apple’s interests. Apple needed to make it go away, and quickly.

Apple’s bricking strategy apparently has yielded to a method much harder to defeat: the terms of the AT&T service contract.

Simply canceling the contract with AT&T after the iPhone purchase would seem a workable tactic. Adding the lower cost of the new iPhone ($199) to the $175 fee for canceling the contract and the initial $40 activation fee brings you to a total of $415, just $16 more than buying the original iPhone without a contract.

But according to a Computerworld article, AT&T will require the return of the iPhone before it cancels the contract.

So if you really want to own an unlocked iPhone, you’ll face no insurmountable technical barrier. But since you’ll be paying full freight for AT&T’s service, you’ll have gained little.