AT&T Losing iPhone Exclusivity on Wednesday?

http://hothardware.com/News/Will-ATT-Lose-Their-iPhone-Exclusivity-On-Wednesday/

According to an inside source close to the going-ons involved in all of this, a new tablet of some sort may not be the only thing on deck for next Wednesday though. We have been led to believe by an inside source that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on the same day, though it's not yet clear what other carrier (or carriers) will be stepping in to also carry the phone.

Hmm, obviously this article is just another "rumor" article, but aren't Apple events usually on Tuesdays while this one is on a Wednesday? In fact, before the official announcement, most people expected the event to be on Jan 26th. So could this possibly mean that Apple has positioned the event to coincide with the expiration of their AT&T exclusivity contract?

No one knows how long the original iPhone and post iPhone 3G contracts were. And I mean no one outside Apple HQ and AT&T HQ. Everyone is assuming and doing wishful thinking on mere analysis.

Verizon will not carry the iPhone for a long time. So quit it with such threads... once LTE is up and running then, yes I'll feel more comfortable saying, Verizon might get it soon.

Nobody knows anything.

No one knows how long the original iPhone and post iPhone 3G contracts were. And I mean no one outside Apple HQ and AT&T HQ. Everyone is assuming and doing wishful thinking on mere analysis.

Verizon will not carry the iPhone for a long time. So quit it with such threads... once LTE is up and running then, yes I'll feel more comfortable saying, Verizon might get it soon.

Why is everyone seem to link it to LTE.....

Verizon going LTE does not remove the requirement for the iPhone or any phone on Verizon network from having to support CDMA.
All 3G GSM phones on AT&T network or other GSM networks are required to support Edge, GPRS and GSM. So for 3G phones current out on lets say AT&T network already have to support all 4 of those types. When AT&T adds LTE that means it has to support that on top of the other 4 making it 5 different types of signals the phone would need to be able to flip between.

The older stuff stays active because it is already up and running and works everywhere. All they can do is general upgrade towers which as you can tell takes decades. the GPRS and GSM signal types required to support are already over 20 years old and not going to go away any time soon.

No one knows how long the original iPhone and post iPhone 3G contracts were. And I mean no one outside Apple HQ and AT&T HQ. Everyone is assuming and doing wishful thinking on mere analysis.

That's true.

Verizon will not carry the iPhone for a long time.

Now who's "assuming and doing wishful thinking on mere analysis"? :)

You're doing the same as everyone else: making deductions based on available evidence.

MacRumors exists for the purpose of trying to make sense out of available information.

Why is everyone seem to link it to LTE.....

Verizon going LTE does not remove the requirement for the iPhone or any phone on Verizon network from having to support CDMA.
All 3G GSM phones on AT&T network or other GSM networks are required to support Edge, GPRS and GSM. So for 3G phones current out on lets say AT&T network already have to support all 4 of those types. When AT&T adds LTE that means it has to support that on top of the other 4 making it 5 different types of signals the phone would need to be able to flip between.

The older stuff stays active because it is already up and running and works everywhere. All they can do is general upgrade towers which as you can tell takes decades. the GPRS and GSM signal types required to support are already over 20 years old and not going to go away any time soon.

I agree LTE has nothing to do with it. Any phone that goes on Verizon will have to support CDMA for voice and for data to fall back to EVDO when LTE is not in the area. It will be years before Verizon is doing VoIP on LTE. If you honestly believe either Apple won't or can't build a CDMA iPhone, then it will probably be closer to later this decade before we ever see a Verizon one.

It is going to be so funny to see if and when this happens. What will all the people who say Apple will never do this say then???

It is going to be so funny to see if and when this happens. What will all the people who say Apple will never do this say then???

They wont be able to say anything since they will be choking on crow.

EVERYTHING is a rumor until Wednesday.

Wouldn't a CDMA iPhone have to get FCC approval? If so, then if there was a Verizon phone, we'd have heard of the FCC filings. Face it, Verizon isn't getting the iPhone anytime soon.

Far more likely that we will see a T-Mobile 3G compatible iPhone first. Though we could hear about a VZ/CDMA phone coming in June on Wed.

I think some other hints of AT&T losing exclusivity were visible in their CES press release.

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=30353

Big push to get developers to develop apps for phones other than iPhone.

“Today some AT&T customers can take advantage of more than 100,000 apps – but only if they have the right handset. Our goal is to bring more apps to millions more of our customers who want convenient access to the market’s hottest apps. At the same time, in the future, we plan to go well beyond mobile devices to spur apps development.”

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