With the announcement of the Apple iPhone 5 due at an event taking place tomorrow (Wednesday) the rumor mill is grinding at its fastest with huge amounts of speculation. One of the longest-running pieces of speculation has surrounded T-Mobile US and whether it will get to sell the iPhone 5 and while that is still in doubt, today we can bring news that T-Mobile is requesting iPhone customers on Apple announcement day.

We recently mentioned T-Mobile flyers that have been in evidence urging customers to “bring your own iPhone” and now it appears that T-Mobile is pressing forward with this move and intensifying its efforts with this scheme. A T-Mobile press release has been issued talking about the fact that plenty of devices use T-Mobile’s network despite the fact that they were not purchased in T-Mobile stores. These include more than one million iPhones and T-Mobile is appealing to more customers to bring their unlocked iPhones to the company and making it more attractive to do so.

Further steps in this endeavor will begin on September 12 (iPhone 5 announcement day), when all T-Mobile retail stores will now have an iPhone 4S demo unit and staff training for assisting customers to set up their compatible iPhones will also begin. Further enticements will be iOS versions of some T-Mobile apps such as myAccount, Visual Voicemail and TV and select markets will start receiving incentive offer testing. As well as this, marketing attractions urging customers to bring their unlocked iPhones will include unlimited nationwide data, savings of $50 months against AT&T and improved coverage with the 4G (HSPA+) service in the iPhone-compatible spectrum.

T-Mobile has also tested the unlocked iPhone 4S over its 4G HSPA+ service on its 1900 network and claim to have achieved 70% faster download speeds than the same phone on AT&T. T-Mobile may not yet be selling the iPhone then but appears to be going all out to gain iPhone customers in luring owners of unlocked iPhone’s to its network. The use of iPhone 4S demo units is also a promising sign for them carrying the iPhone in the future. We’ll remind you though that Verizon and Sprint iPhone’s are not compatible with T-Mobile’s network.

We’d like to hear your thoughts on this initiative by T-Mobile to attract customers with unlocked iPhone’s to its network. Do you find the current moves appeal to you? Do you imagine that this could mean that T-Mobile is any closer to selling the Apple iPhone itself? Let us know with your comments.