It is easy to see the iPhone as a mixed blessing for a wireless provider, with insanely high data rates on one side and insanely high sign-up rates on the other. Do Apple and Verizon want each other?

Ivan Seidenberg, the chairman and CEO of Verizon, apparently is still nurturing a desire to have the iPhone as a part of the Verizon family. He seems to have cooled off considerably, though, since his company ran an ad that was almost over the top in favor of the iPhone. Since then, Seidenberg has run an ad pushing the Motorola Android phone and poking barbs at the iPhone. In his latest public statement, pushing the data-ready state of his network, Seidenberg has said that he hopes Apple “will decide to jump on the bandwagon but this is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court.”

Everyone is talking about the Apple and AT&T exclusivity issue except Apple and AT&T, much to the detriment of Verizon. The general consensus seems to be that the iPhone is keeping AT&T afloat in terms of sales but that the prodigious use of data by iPhone users is placing a strain on the legacy-heavy AT&T network, resulting in poor service and complaints about bad service by iPhone users. It is a vicious cycle that seems not to want to go away.

Even with that poor service, AT&T is signing up more new customers than is Verizon, 2 million to 1.2 million during the last quarter according to an Information Week story. It is difficult to tell whether the AT&T network is not up to snuff or if it is a good network weighed down by iPhone users. Seidenburg again: “We obviously would be interested at any point in the future they (Apple) thought it would make sense for them to have us as a partner. What they have done has been successful, so we have to sit back and give them credit for that.”

The smart money is still saying that the AT&T network is substandard compared to Verizon’s infrastructure. Most analysts are still saying that an iPhone will be appearing soon at a Verizon store near you. However, Apple is still not saying anything. Their actions, such as taking away exclusive iPhone deals in other markets make it clear that they understand the concept. The Senate probe of exclusive deals between handset manufacturers and wireless carriers gives them an excellent reason to stop the practice in the U.S. market. Customer complaints about AT&T give them another. Yet they remain eerily silent on their plans.

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Entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 2:17 pm under Internet, Rumor, iPhone.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
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