AT&T Insiders Report iPhone Exclusivity Going Away On Wednesday

Verizon would definitely be on top of the list for Apple. It has the largest amount of active subscribers, and has the largest coverage area wise of any carrier. And they'll start rolling out their 4G network later this year.

Yeah; that's one thing I just don't get with At&t the wireless strategy. They are saying there working on a upgrade within 3G, rather than stepping up to 4G. Sprint has already rolled out 4G at least partially and they are a Verizon tower partner as well. Then Verizon is rolling out it's own 4G LTE as well this year. That leaves At&t as the only major carrier running 3G in the US. You would think they would have used some of that great income, to upgrade there path at least to current b4 the I-phones started to eat there network as well as their public status. One of the funny things is there current commercials which state you cannot use a phone while surfing on Verizon. That's flat untrue it all depends on the phone if it is a current smart phone especially a Droid or Droid Eris you can surf and use the phone simultaneously no problem. It basically depends what network segment your on the Touch pro2's and anything equivalent can do the same.

So it's not viable to expect an Android based iPhone running Chrome on Wednesday?

I heard that it might not be the iPhone, but just their eBook/Tablet PC that they announce that will be able to be bought with Verizon service.

iphone would stay with AT&T after all... that is my 2 cent :)

It might be both, we don't know at this point. What they do know is that Apple execs have been talking with Verizon and that the AT&T contract is set to expire. So a Verizon-Apple partnership is a distinct possibility

Also we know that EA has been in talks with Apple regarding games for a "new platform". I think they mean the tablet.

3 days now though, time to jump in on the Apple stock?

I don't really understand them still being with any cellular provider in a singular agreement. After the first I-phone did as well as it did I would have dropped exclusivity on a dime. Because on multiple providers Apple stand to make more money, way more money. Plus no one will turn them away for sure or at least I would not see how other than if Google became a cellular carrier.

"We don't remember hearing about AT&T's "horrible network" before the iPhone--do you?"

I definitely do! I had AT&T for years (back when it was Cingular) and it was terrible. Dropped calls, missed texts, and lack of service where everyone else had service. I switched to Verizon and all those were problems were either completely fixed or close enough to it that it became a non-issue. On Verizon, dropping a call was a surprising event. Now that I am back on AT&T (father forced me to because I was only one not on the family plan and I now have an iPhone) a dropped call is routine and getting through an entire conversation without either having to call back or ask the other person to repeat themselves is an amazing feat! That simply is not good enough. I am switching back to Verizon as soon as my contract is up. And if the iPhone is there when I get there, all the better.

My first phone was Bellsouth Mobility which then flipped to At&t then Cingular now back to At&t any company that purposefully changes there name leaves me with some doubt. I mean if your a successful company why would you ever wanna change it's name really unless you joined with another company or something.

I had Verizon, which was really bad in the MD/DC area, so I switched to Cingular, but then they got bought by AT&T. That being said I've only have had jobs (since graduating) where it was a firing offense to bring a camera into work, so I've never had a smartphone or camera phone since switching off of verizon (I had a camera phone in college).

That being said, AT&T doesn't seem to have horrible coverage on the east coast, the second you pass the Appalachian mountains though, you are on your own lol

Lol, it's just corporate shenanigans. 

Originally, Cingular Wireless was a joint venture between SBC and BellSouth. Cingular then acquired AT&T Wireless (but not AT&T Inc). Then SBC acquired AT&T Inc and called it "The New AT&T". And when AT&T acquired BellSouth, Cingular Wireless became AT&T Wireless.

Did you get it? Me neither...

I haven't had much experience with other networks, but my brother who switched from AT&T (part of a company overhaul), very much prefers Verizon.

I'm really hoping Apple does a complete game changing move with whatever their new creation is that they are announcing on Wednesday. By game changing, I mean turn the wireless industry on their head.

Imagine using a device that is able to roam freely among all wireless service networks giving you the strongest signal anywhere you are in the world. At the end of the month, the networks would get their portion of the service plan that is tracked by Apple's gadget and their infrastructure.

Everyone is tired of customer complaints against service providers. This is the one solution that would change ALL that! If you are interesting in this solution, read more about it here: http://bit.ly/4wq4jU

A few years back I switched to AT&T because the Verizon network in our town was horrible. Verizon still has a large pocket of dead spots in the area of Massachusetts we're in. AT&T seems to hold calls better out here for some reason, though when I'm on the road, AT&T definitely seems to have network capacity issues/slow performance. In Vegas at CES, AT&T was a mess because every geek (like me) and their iPhone was out there on the network. I think AT&T would have been smart to let a little competition in, somewhere along the way with the iPhone but they obviously weren't.

Some of their network architects and engineers should be given the pink slip for not provisioning the resources properly to accommodate all the upside subscribers the iPhone brought them. It's not so much a cell site problem I don't think but rather just being over-subscribed. That and I've definitely seen my iPhone 3G take a knee on a regular basis when switching from 3G to Edge, which should have been worked out a long time ago but wasn't apparently.

their fail

I'm not sure that their network architects and engineers should be to blame for what seems to be an executive and managerial decision to milk profits without upgrading infrastructure which I am sure any of their decent network architects and engineers probably brought up.

What does 4G mean exactly? Is it a technical specification or just a marketing term, like "broadband"?

@rapid1

If you did some resarch, you would find that every name change form AT&T was associated with a joining with another company. Verizon is no different. They were formed by Bell Atlantic, GTE and Powertel. They just did their mergers a longer while ago. Heck, even T-Mobile is a merger. They used to be Voicestream and before that they were Omnipoint. Sprint is the only major company that hasn't had a name change.

By branchc on Jan 25, 2010

@rapid1

If you did some resarch, you would find that every name change form AT&T was associated with a joining with another company. Verizon is no different. They were formed by Bell Atlantic, GTE and Powertel. They just did their mergers a longer while ago. Heck, even T-Mobile is a merger. They used to be Voicestream and before that they were Omnipoint. Sprint is the only major company that hasn't had a name change.

-----

A couple of small corrections: Powertel never merged with GTE -> Verizon; Powertel briefly rebranded as VoiceStream before it becoming T-Mobile. (I didn't remember the Omnipoint merger involved here, because they weren't local ; maybe somebody else know the other companies absorbed.) CellularOne was the large cellular network bought by GTE before it merged with Bell Atlantic to become Verizon.

And yes, Sprint is the only one that hasn't changed names, because they were much later to the (wireless) game than the other players (no analog network, they started from scratch in the mid nineties) and thus the smallest of the major carriers; however, Sprint did buy Nextel in one of the most painful cellular system mergers in history.

Hopefully, the pending merger of Verizon and Alltel will run much more smoothly, since these two consistently garner the highest customer satisfaction marks in the industry. Now if only Alltel can cure Verizon of their relentless "we can charge for that" attitude toward every single beneficial feature on their network... :-)

4G refers to 4th generation (as opposed to 3rd generation or 3G) data networks. I don't know the technical specs, so I can't address the differences between 3G (or 4G) implementations on Sprint v. AT&T v. Verizon, but everybody is having to make major upgrades to their wireless data networks to keep up with increasing demands from "data hogs" like iPhone users, i.e. anyone who actually uses their 'smartphone' for more than just checking e-mail.

4G is, of course, much faster than 3G, but as you can tell from the chatter here and elsewhere, there is a lot more to the efficiency of a network and its benefits to you, than raw throughput in a stationary location. As they say, "Individual results may vary."

At&T is the best carrier and I can't believe that anyone believe's those bad ads about the map coverage. What a joke, they are involved in a very large law suit over the mis-information the Verizon is sending out. Whenever there is an exclusive, it always comes to an end, AT&T saw the advantage to the iPhone in the beginning (when none of the other carriers had the knowledge to see how well it would take off) and were smart to lock in an exclusive. Boy, It's hard to believe that people are so gullable and believe anything they hear on commercials!! We have tried every other carrier there is and NONE stand up to the service, coverage and non-dropped calls that AT&T (Cingular) provides. The speed of AT&T's 3G will way exceed the others 4G and then all those customers will be crying and complaining. Do your homework people and don't get sucked in by the lies.

I'm actually with millca on this one. Google's Nexus One will be available on both GSM and CDMA networks...if Apple doesn't follow suit, how much market share do they stand to lose?

The networks should be awarded on how strong they can make their networks, instead of trying to trap customers into 2 year plans. So if you're in Massachusetts, your phone logs onto AT&T, and in Upstate New York, Verizon becomes your service provider. This way competition and innovation will push the market in the right direction: better network for everyone. Much of Europe already uses this model, why not in America?

Granna:

At&T is the best carrier and I can't believe that anyone believe's those bad ads about the map coverage. What a joke, they are involved in a very large law suit over the mis-information the Verizon is sending out. Whenever there is an exclusive, it always comes to an end, AT&T saw the advantage to the iPhone in the beginning (when none of the other carriers had the knowledge to see how well it would take off) and were smart to lock in an exclusive. Boy, It's hard to believe that people are so gullable and believe anything they hear on commercials!! We have tried every other carrier there is and NONE stand up to the service, coverage and non-dropped calls that AT&T (Cingular) provides. The speed of AT&T's 3G will way exceed the others 4G and then all those customers will be crying and complaining. Do your homework people and don't get sucked in by the lies.

It depends where you are, but the Iphone has put more pressure on AT&T's 3G network than they estimated, hence the frequent network problems. I'm guessing the bandwidth usage on the Verizon network is a fraction of what it is on AT&T.

Soups touche' ... right on, agreed, most likely it was someone Engineering Management weasel that probably made the call... or wait... it was dropped, so they probably couldn't make any call. :)

I agree gibbersome if this were the case the early termination fines would disappear at least at a reasonable time line. This is if the market actually worked on validity of great service from a provider. This would also be the best for everyone (except the provider with the lowest coverage and or availability of specific services),

Dave_HH:

Soups touche' ... right on, agreed, most likely it was someone Engineering Management weasel that probably made the call... or wait... it was dropped, so they probably couldn't make any call. :)

The great thing about being an executive is that even if you fail, you have a nice severance package waiting for you. Also...you get to set your own pay pretty much. It was a decision made looking at the short term and now AT&T is paying for it.

rapid1:

I agree gibbersome if this were the case the early termination fines would disappear at least at a reasonable time line. This is if the market actually worked on validity of great service from a provider. This would also be the best for everyone (except the provider with the lowest coverage and or availability of specific services),

Yep, that would be another big advantage...no termination fees. Simply buy your own phone and you'd be set. One of the issues is that the mass public would miss the free phones they get with a 2 yr contract. Make no mistake, if people had to cough up $400 for each generation of Iphone, they would not be as prevalent.