USA Today is reporting that Apple and Verizon have been in talks since last year to bring the iPhone to the Verizon network. Just a few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T was trying to extend their exclusive US rights to carry the iPhone another year to 2011. Citing anonymous sources, USA Today writes:
The New York-based telecom [Verizon] entered into “high-level” discussions with Apple management a few months ago, when CEO Steve Jobs was overseeing day-to-day business, these sources say. They declined to be named because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly
This directly contradicts comments made by Apple COO Tim Cook last week during Apple’s quarterly earnings call, who hinted that Verizon’s CDMA network is a technological dead end and would add unwanted complication to Apple’s manufacturing process due to the need for a different type of radio hardware.
Well from a technology point of view as you know, Verizon is on CDMA and we’ve shown from the beginning of the iPhone to focus on one phone for the whole of the world and when you do that, you really go down the GSM root, because CDMA is – doesn’t really have a life to it after a point in time.
It’s more likely the two companies were discussing Verizon’s next generation wireless network, LTE, which will begin to be built out starting in 2010. An LTE network fits into Apple’s requirement of “one phone for the whole of the world”, but it’s not likely the network will offer extensive nationwide deployment until a few years from now.