iPhone To Verizon Rumors Back

It looks like the iPhone may yet head to Verizon despite some differences of opinion between the nation's largest carrier and Apple. Verizon has been beefing up their network to handle iPhone traffic in the event the Apple-AT&T exclusivity agreement ends.BusinessWeek is reporting that Anthony Melone, the Verizon Chief Technology Officer, has said that the network has been upgraded to support the massive bandwidth that iPhone users inflict on the network. "We have put things in place already" and "We are prepared to support that traffic."

That may well be, but there are still some issues the two giants will have to come to an agreement on. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, Verizon favors its V Cast music service where it gets the money paid for songs. I actually don't know anyone that builds a music library using that service, but Verizon is very proud of it. Apple, on the other hand, has the iPhone tied inextricably to iTunes. Unless there is some sort of cut that goes on behind the scenes, AT&T doesn't see any of the iTunes revenue anymore than AT&T would get a cut of anything else purchased from an iPhone.

My money is on T-Mobile getting the iPhone before Verizon does. It is a GSM network like AT&T so fewer hardware changes are necessary. T-Mobile would also be far more willing to meet Apple's demands than Verizon would be. And whatever happens will happen in 2010 too. The biggest shock I could think of relating to the iPhone would be the exclusivity agreement being renewed into 2011 and beyond.