Although it’s the corporate home of Telefonica, S.A., (TEF) one of the world’s largest telecommunications conglomerates (it owns, among other carriers, Britain’s O2), Spain hadn’t received official word of a signed deal with Apple (AAPL) until early this morning, when a press release and an iPhone pre-registration link appeared on the home page of Movistar, the local Telefonica subsidiary.

Then, a few hours later, the pre-registration page went away and the press link disappeared. According to one report, nearly 25,000 Spaniards had signed up for the iPhone before the site closed and reverted to a generic Movistar home page.