In the Fairphone 2, are there any hardware of software elements that are specific to a country? I am asking because, on my Nokia smarphone I can´t download the German versions of some apps in the Windows phone app store because my phone is French, although I am in Germany.
The software on a phone is not the app store. The apps store is often a wall garden … this is often also true for the used OS 
So … yes and no. It depends on the app/software and how it works internally.
Update: Maybe if you have an example people will be able to give you better feedback?
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Sure. this is what I experience: I have a monthly subscription on the streaming music site Napster.de (the german website). I have the application for Windows Phone installed on my phone, logged in to my paid account but in order to use the paid features I need to click the “update app” button from inside the app. this redirects me to a page from the Napster website (in my phone browser) with an error message saying that the features are not available in my country. so there is something in my phone that tells Napster that my phone is French. the Windows Phone OS, I suppose. this makes me say that my phone was set up for the french market. in the same way, is my future Fairphone 2 set up for a specific country?
Most of that is based on software “in the cloud”. The company decides … not you/your phone. Most often based on your IP address among other things.
If you download your music/content to your phone, this will not happen. It’s more a marketing problem, it has nothing to do with the FP2. You could possible “fake” some of your data that is sent to company’s servers, but in the end, the company will dictate the rules for you. You pay for a “service” with terms … not for owning the “content” itself anymore. Try to avoid those services, if you don’t like their rules.
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I understand that the company decides, but based on information that is in my phone… You say maybe the IP address… But what does my IP address tell them for them to say that the service is not available for me?
The country you are in … 
For music (you mentioned napster) different copyright laws and so called “collecting societies” dictate the companies to separate their users like this. But it’s based on your provider that you use during the time you access the service, not on your phone or your users settings (they don’t trust you …).
For other services, this can have other reasons, of course. This answer is for music only.
Your IP address is assigned by the network you connect to, and as such will be different on each network that you connect to. The IPs available for each network to assign, are themselves pre-determined. As a result databases exist that can link an IP to a geographical location. Without special steps*, your IP will therefore generally reflect the country that you’re in at that time.
*e.g. accessing a VPN connects you to a remote network, which could be anywhere in the world. In general, any services you connect to via that network will see you as being part of that remote network, and will think that you’re in the part of the world where the VPN server is based.
I’m not sure I understand. when you say ´network´ it it my mobile network operator? I have a german one (I’m not doing roaming). wouldn`t it assign me a german IP address then?
It should. An easy way to check would be to go to (for example) http://showip.net/. Note that the geo-location information is not device information, but registration information - it shouldn’t show where you are, just where your network is registered in the system.
I’m not sure how windows phone and napster determine geo-location. If you got the French app, then perhaps it won’t work with the German service by design. Probably you’d need to change your location as explained here and then install the German app. Note that in android things will work differently, so I can’t say much about what your experience on the FP2 would be like.
Good info. thanks.
Showip tells me that I’m in Germany. so no surprise.
Actually, I think the error message that I get when clicking on the link inside the app to upgrade the app is leading me in the wrong direction: I think the issue is not my country but my phone OS version. I have Windows Phone 7,8 (Showip even says WP7,5) and I see in the app store that the app upgrade is not available for version lower than 8. (in fact I don´t find any Napster app at all in the app store, as the Napster app version that is on my phone is not even listed any more). so I don´t think it is a geo-location problem. just my phone becoming obsolete.
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I understand that the company decides, but based on information that is in my phone… You say maybe the IP address… But what does my IP address tell them for them to say that the service is not available for me?
I will quote myself for you 
Just to avoid any potential confusion here: there was a problem with e-mail replies getting posted to the forum - it’s been fixed now, but this imported a huge (outdated) back load of posts. Any posts with an envelope next to the time are suspect…
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