Yesterday I wrote about the possibility for Verizon to be earlier in the game than 2012. Here is another scenario why it is plausible.
http://www.wired.com reported in May 2010:
Apple’s supposedly confidential agreement with AT&T was not a secret after all: They struck a five-year exclusivity contract to carry the iPhone in 2007, an old court document reveals. Still, the validity of the contract remains a question.
An ongoing class action suit filed against Apple and AT&T in 2007 alleged that the two parties held a monopoly over the iPhone by locking consumers into a contract for an indefinite amount of time. However, Engadget’s Nilay Patel discovered that Apple filed a brief in October 2008 citing a USA Today article, which says Apple and AT&T struck a five-year agreement for the iPhone in 2007.
“AT&T has exclusive U.S. distribution rights for five years — an eternity in the go-go cellphone world,” the USA Today article dated May 23, 2007 wrote. “And Apple is barred for that time from developing a version of the iPhone for CDMA wireless networks.”
That would imply AT&T will be the exclusive U.S. carrier of the iPhone until 2012, which comes at odds with persistent rumors that Apple’s contract with AT&T expires this year and that a Verizon iPhone is due this fall.
However Apple usually does not sign any contracts with the ability to back out of them or to have a plan to sell to other carriers without breaking the contract.
A friend of mine who is working at Apple (but not in the iPhone department) mentioned to me that there are rumors, that the ATT contract does only apple to specific iPhones with 2G and 3G or 4G if ATT is able to provide 4G in major cities in 2011. ATT is planing to roll out 4G in 2011 a long-term evolution version (4G LTE), which could be fairly easy deployed, hence it is on the 700MHz frequency and would not require new towers. However the ATT net is already pretty packed and network reception complains are getting higher.
ATT has surely a lot work to do to get full coverage and keep customer happy.
The contract says (rumors) that if ATT can't keep up with technology demand, that Apple is allowed to offer new iPhone technology through other providers. In other words if Apple can't sell enough phones because ATT can't keep up then Verizon has a deal if Verizon can rollout till end of the year their 4G LTE (planned to cover 100 million users in 30 major cities http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=16738&news=Verizon+4G+LTE+Release+Date+Price).
ATT would be still sole provider for 3G iPhones but not for a 4G iPhone.
Hopefully the phone will have both CDMA and GSM for travelers like me.
The question is, do we need 4G? Sure video streaming is cool, face time is awesome, but it is very likely that no carrier will offer unlimited data, it will be tiered and expensive.
I don't care who my carrier is, as long my reception voice or data is good. I switch if i can have better service regardless if i pay more.
- Posted using My iPad
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