Verizon Wireless to get the iPhone?
“When hell freezes over” - that is when most people would assume Verizon Wireless will finally get its mits on the iPhone. Not so says an insider who, according to 9to5mac, claims that a deal is in the making with an announcement possibly coming as early as Macworld 2009. What about that whole exclusivity deal AT&T has with Apple? Well, 9to5mac points out that there are no public documents confirming the exclusivity length and with rumored dates ranging from 2 to 5 years we really don’t know how long AT&T exclusivity would last. After all, AT&T wouldn’t want us to know that their exclusivity is coming to an end soon, now would they? Irregardless, a Macworld announcement would set the exclusivity to 18 months and a WWDC would set it at 2 years which would be in line with some of the rumors floating around. With job postings for CDMA and EVDO engineers floating around Apple’s iPhone job board and Apple showing a willingness to bend their rules by unlocking the iPhone for the Hong Kong market, this rumor may not be so far-fetched after all.
Tags: 3G, Apple, AT&T, CDMA, GSM, iPhone, Verizon, verizon wireless
So AT&T gets the full blown iPhone and Verizon gets the iPhone stripped of all the goodies?
Maybe they’ll call it the iPhone Plus on AT&T.
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Wow, that’d certainly be interesting. I was about ready to jump ship from Verizon (but still probably will). By the way, I think you meant “regardless” not “irregardless”.
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ALL the rumors about the length of AT&T’s exclusivity - let’s emphasize that a little more…==ALL the rumors==… - came from ONE source - a USA Today author who CHANGED the story with the release of “iPhone, part II” to be “5 years for original iPhone” to “2 years for original iPhone now extended due to 3G iPhone”.
There have been NO OTHER sources for such exclusivity periods.
I don’t think it’s far-fetched at all that the iPhone is going elsewhere in The States…soon.
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Yea VZW, a day late, i am a bb faithful, so i will give the storm a major shot, but the thinness ? coolness factor of the iphone is interesting???
If they can release a 60 gig version by then I may just have to say bye bye to my BB???
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Just like with Android, this is all pointing to VZW finally giving up on their software control to force their craptacular UI on the phones.
This will also force them to not lock down the GPS and the WiFi. And - competition is good. I have no real reason to switch from AT&T to Verizon, but if Verizon gets the iPhone then they will start a price war in terms of service fees.
So if Verizon, Sprint, T-Mo, Alltel, etc… all get the iPhone, my cost goes down.
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On the flip side, maybe AT&T will get the Blackberry Storm…? (wishful thinking)
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There are unlocked iPhones 3G in Belgium since launch day, in fact they only sell them completely unlocked. Nothing new in the Hong Kong development, and it’s obvious Apple is fine with multiple carriers if you look at many EU countries.
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Now were talking!!!! Time to snatch up the BB Storm and hope that at some point Big Red gets their hands on the iPhone…..Gotta figure there is a nice untapped market of CDMA users who would love to get their hands on the iPhone….If the goal is to get everyone using an iPhone then it makes sense to create a CDMA model as well as the GSM that ATT already has
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This could be very good news. Hopefully this means At&t will have no hesitation in getting the Touch HD or the Omina,
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Irregardless. ; )
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Irregardless is totally my favorite word, and I am so glad BGR is using it! My mom from Texas taught me that adding prefixes, suffixes, and thus, extra syllables to any word can increase a word’s impact in most debates. I am surely hoping that Ver-i-ze-on will get the iPhone, but I do not know if I can hold out for yet another year.
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I would like an iPhone. But, I don’t want one enough to jump ship from Verizon to At&t, and I know I’m not alone in this line of thinking.
The move to CDMA would be a pretty huge deal in the US.
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Verizon …. iPhone… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAH!!!!!
First off, Verizon will not only get rid of the whole Apple UI, but replace it with their craptastic LG one (and we all know how LG works). Then they will jack up the data price for it claiming it does more - keep in mind, Unlimited IN-Network text will be included but no out-network, and of course kill the WiFi and make people wonder…”What happened to Google GPS Maps!?” in favor of charging $19.99 (yes more) for VZNav (again, claiming it does more on the iPhone).
Then there is T-Mobile and Sprint - Lord knows these two are so desperate they might actually get the damn thing done right from Launch.
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WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!
okay, now that’s out of my system.
1. Verizon can’t lock this phone down.
2. Full WiFi and GPS please.
3. A reasonably priced data plan <—HUGE issue.
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Meh, my cynical side says Apple is making leaks to try to negotiate a better revenue-sharing deal with at&t.
But a CDMA iPhone would be pretty neat, good phone + good network technology- if exclusivity is gone they might as well go to Sprint too. It’d be interesting to see how many of the Sprint/VZW fanboys who previously attacked the iPhone suddenly stand behind it if it comes out on their network of choice…
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Verizon iPhone availability should make many customers happy, given AT&T’s network coverage and call quality simply does not match up in many of the two companies overlapping markets (upstate NY comes to mind).
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Remember, the Storm will have blackberry maps available (free, full GPS) along with VZ Navigator for a fee. That’s a big step for VZW.
After that, anything is possible.
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I think its the “iPhone nano” thats headed to Verizon! The execlusivity deal was with iPhone not the iPhone nano.
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So now the only question that come up in my mind is what cellular tech will be in the Verizon iPhone? If they announce it in early to mid 2009, they wouldn’t have to necessarily release it right away, which opens the option of it being a new version on the LTE 4G spec. Then they could release it on both ATT and Verizon, since they are both transitioning to the LTE spec for 4G. If they stay with EVDO 3G that Verizon has now, then you lose the capability of receiving phone calls while using the data features, which in my opinion would be a major step backwards from ATT 3G.
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Yea I agree with Mike…Verizon getting the iPhone would make sense since they are indeed moving to the 4G LTE spectrum. It would be a major move though since the iPhone is truly the only device AT&T has that hase made people jump ship. I am not the biggest iPhone fan and plan on getting the Storm but I would not be adverse to picking it up if there is a great overhaul of its features and form factor, since it has not changed from the previous one it looks just like the damn itouch. And you also have to love the UI.
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P.S. Verizon moving to 4G LTE article right here. Coincidentally, I just happened to be reading it when I saw this post on BGR. http://gigaom.com/2007/11/29/verizon-picks-lte-as-4g-standard-for-wireless-broadband/
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“Irregardless?”
Look up this word in a dictionary, will you?
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Would the people complaining about Verizon’s data rates please point out how the current iPhone rates are any cheaper than Verizon’s current data plans?
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The problem with BOTH is that they are too high.
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Very nice.. I’m curious to see if this actually plays out.
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