Verizon, 4G and iPhones

cgriffin21 writes "Verizon plans to launch its 4G LTE network in 38 major U.S. metropolitan areas by year's end, in an ambitious rollout that will also drape high-speed mobile broadband coverage over 60 airports." Not coincidentally, everyone and their brother is talking about iPhone on Verizon in 2011, and what that means to Android.

too little too late

[SoupGuru]

Tons of people got tired of waiting for the iPhone on Verizon and had to settle for an Android phone only figure out, "Hey, this Android stuff is actually pretty cool!" and now have no desire for an iPhone. So Apple might get more of the currently-smartphoneless-on-Verizon demographic when their contracts allow them to upgrade, but I think they've lost every single one that's bought into Android up to this point.

Re:The missing piece

[Swanktastic]

As far as I can tell, this assertion is speculation as well. According to court filings, it appears Apple and AT&T signed a 5 year exclusivity contract in 2007 as the iPhone was launching. It was not clear at all at the time how popular the iPhone would become. There's no reason to believe the contract has remained intact for 4 years. That's eons for consumer electronics contracts. It's much more likely that exclusivity, margins, etc. were all renegotiated as each side learned more about how the iPhone was performing in the market.

Re:Nothing?

[AshtangiMan]

If only those 2 year contracts came to an end. I have to wait an entire month . . . Oh that's right, I am thinking to change when my contract is up. Though I am thinking of going from iPhone to DroidX. The iPhone 3G is good, but annoyingly slow, and some of the policies that changed with upgrades to newer iOS don't sit well with me, so I am still running 3.0. The only thing I might miss is the talk and surf which does come in very handy. So I am covered by your number 3. Most of my friends and family have Verizon, and they have all mentioned wanting to switch to the iPhone, so I am not sure your option 1 is very correct, though it may slow the adoption. In my mind that can only help Verizon as it gives the network the opportunity to grow with the demand.

Re:Nothing?

[natehoy]

I got my smartphone nearly two years ago, issued by my company (a BlackBerry). My contract is up in another few months. We had our choice of three BlackBerry models (81xx, 83xx, and 88xx) and two carriers (Verizon and AT&T).

A significant population of people really wanted iPhones, but at the time they were most certainly NOT ready for corporate prime time.

More importantly, AT&T's coverage is a little worse than Verizon's up in this area, too, so locking into AT&T for everyone was completely impractical.

Now things are very different.

If my company decides to replace our phones when the contract is up, who knows what options will be available to us? iPhone seems to be ready for corporate use now - they've beefed them up to acceptable security, added remote wipe, encrypted the onboard data, etc. A lot of things that, much as I'm a fan of the Droid OS, Droid has yet to deliver as far as I know. So I suspect it'll be iPhone or BlackBerry for us.

Of course, the iPhone is still impractical at the moment, because there are a lot of people who were forced to choose Verizon for their BlackBerries simply because AT&T lacked coverage at their houses or places where they needed it. This despite the fact that Verizon crippled the GPS and a few other features on the phone, so there was a decided preference for AT&T for most of us (fortunately, I'm in a good AT&T coverage area at home so I was able to use AT&T). If your phone don't work, then it don't work. So unless the iPhone was somehow available on Verizon, it's simply not an option around here for many people.

But if the iPhone hits Verizon, there's little reason to even offer AT&T any more at work. They could easily consolidate to the platform most people seem to want (iPhone) on the carrier that has better coverage around these parts (Verizon) and consolidate to one single handset model rather than six and one carrier rather than two. They'd need fewer swap spares and probably get better pricing on plans, too.

Personally, I'd prefer a newer BlackBerry, but hey - I'm not paying for it. If the company decides to standardize on Verizon iPhones, then that's what I'll carry. And it'll beat the hell out of paying for my own phone.