In an interview with BusinessWeek, Verizon Wireless' Chief Technology Officer, Anthony Melone said that his company is prepared for the iPhone.
Melone said: "We have put things in place already. We are prepared to support that traffic."
Does that mean iPhone will be coming to Verizon soon? We have heard conflicting reports.
Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Bros. sees Verizon's aspirations to be incompatible with Apple's very own business aspirations that could eventually be the reason why the two companies will not come together to sell the iPhone in the near future.
Thomas Weisel analyst, Doug Reid predicts that given the recent spate of promotional attacks unleashed by Verizon against the iPhone as well as its growing proximity to Google, Apple's next carrier partner might not be Verizon after all. Doug claims that the AT&T exclusivity could be ended with a partnership with Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile instead.
But there are some analysts who believe that there are high chances that the iPhone will come to Verizon. Not only has the carrier expressed its interest in partnering Apple, but also there have been reports about Apple building a UMTS/CDMA hybrid iPhonewhich is due to be launched next year. Besides, it is already known that Verizon is building a next gen LTE network due to be deployed by late next year or 2011. Also, being the largest wireless carrier with 71 million subscribers, it makes business sense for Apple to expand their market by partnering with Verizon.
Melone supports his claims with some numbers. Verizon has invested $19 billion in upgrading its wireless network over the last three years or about $6.3 billion a year. He says: "It comes down to backing that process with money. We've been more consistent than any carrier in the last 10 years investing year over year."
He also believes that Verizon will not have problems that AT&T has faced due to surge in traffic, which has increased 4000% in just over the past one year or so.
He says: "We will handle it if we ever get it". It is the last thing Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility probably wanted to hear, especially since he recently conceded that the Bay area along with New York were still areas where their network was performing at levels below AT&T's standards.
What do you think?
[via BusinessWeek]
All his verizon iPhone crap. Verizon is crazy with there charges. I will neve go with them. But why isn't anyone saying sprint might get he iPhone. Don't sleep the sleeper. Do I hear iPhone 4g with sprint. Hmmmm!
OMG someone put edit on this site. What's wrong with me to many beers already.
Of Course they could handle it. AT&T could use another major network to take some of the traffic off of their system. Everyone should have the iphone available on their network without hacks. Then Apple could really see some profit and significantly less bashing.
i agree..somewhat.
why aren't there talks about offering the iPhone to multiple carriers?
is there some significant reason that Apple MUST have a contract with ONE carrier?
No reason that they HAVE to, but exclusivity has allowed Apple to convince a carrier to eat a significant portion of the iPhone's cost, so customer's can buy one at a reasonable price. They'd have a harder time selling it at $600. If they open it to multiple carriers they're going to need to sell it for a lower margin.
Ugh, I'm so tired of hearing these supposed rumors. But I guess I should expect it since Apple and AT&T's contract is coming to an end. Honestly it wouldn't be a bad idea and since AT&T is talking about metered data plans, now would be a good time to have a network that might not do metered data plans and give iPhone users a break from all the threats and demeaning manner that we've had to endure for a few years now.
Saying that they will have the traffic and actually being able to handle it is two different things…
Apparently AT&T thought they could handle it when they upgraded the towers and looked what happened. The only way Verizon will know that they can handle it is when they actually get the iphone, which I seriously doubt.
I hope other carriers get the iphone tho… that way alot of people can get the hell off of AT&T's towers and make my iphone perfect (btw I have no problems with dropped calls and all these other problems on my phone here in Louisiana…)
Sorry but I don't see the logic of the argument that they need a single carrier to maintain higher margins. Apple's going to sell the device for whatever they want to maintain their margins. The carriers will discount it to whatever price gets the users to their network. We might even see LOWER end-user prices if there were actually some competition in the market for the iPhone.
Are there real-world examples of hugely popular, must-have cellphones that were exclusive on one network that had the end-user price go up once exclusivity was lost?
I agree. I never really understood the benefits of exclusivity versus the benefits of having multiple carriers. Which one is better in terms of future profits, present economy, etc etc.?
Apple should just release unlocked iPhone's……
Even if Apple sold their phone unlocked you still have the problems with network compatibility. AT&T offers GSM which allows the phone to sell in other countries since GSM is world wide, However CDMA is limited primarily to USA and Asia. So if Apple partners up with Verizon then they will have to engineer a phone to work for CDMA which hopefully will give a higher potential or more features not seen yet. We will see in June/July.