Tomorrow Apple and Verizon publicly tie the knot in New York City at 11:00 a.m. EST. Yes, the iPhone is coming to Verizon. Here’s the quickest summary of all of the credible rumors about tomorrow’s event with attribution and links.
The Wall Street Journal has been spot on with all of its Verizon iPhone articles and ran a piece two days ago with juicy details. Citing “people familiar with the matter” (translation: very reliable, trustworthy sources), WSJ broke the news that Verizon has indeed landed the iPhone and will announce it tomorrow, 1/11/11 at 11 a.m. Note all the 1′s. Expect a world’s #1 best selling phone on the #1 carrier type of presentation. According to the WSJ piece, a Sanford Bernstein analyst predicts that Verizon could add as many as 10 million customers in the U.S. to its 93 million existing customers.
Fast Company notes that Gizmodo staffers have not been invited to cover the event, which suggests that Apple had some control over the non-transferable invitations. Remember that Gizmodo bloggers are the same folks who bought the lost iPhone 4 prototype, disassembled it and then blogged the hell out of it. FC also notes that well connected sources at AllThingsD believe Steve Jobs will be on stage with Verizon Communication’s President and COO.
Verizon has also been tweeting from Twitter for iPhone recently and presumably not on AT&T’s signal. :) This suggests to me that Verizon wanted this story to leak out ahead of the event in a planned way with leaks going to trustworthy sources like the WSJ and little scraps of evidence to back it up.
Consistent with earlier reports and common sense, the WSJ reported that the phone will indeed be a CDMA phone. This means don’t hop on eBay in the hope of scooping up a used AT&T iPhone and activating it on Verizon’s network. It won’t work.
One AT&T top officer remarked today that Verizon’s CDMA technology will produce lower data speeds than AT&T’s GSM service. Larry Solomon a mucky muck in Communications at AT&T stated: “The iPhone is built for speed, but that’s not what you get with a CDMA phone. I’m not sure iPhone users are ready for life in the slow lane.” I’ve seen others make remarks that CDMA does not permit simultaneous voice and data traffic. I question whether this is a strong argument in favor of AT&T’s network which is heavily criticized, rightfully so, for dropped calls and weak signals in many markets.
What does this mean for Android? Well, some people who were wedded to Verizon are going to opt for the iPhone over an Android. Will this be enough to significantly slow the adoption of Android? I personally doubt it. If you are considering the iPhone vs. Android, I wrote about that one long ago.
What does this mean for the Verizon network? Verizon has long said that its network has the muscle to handle iPhone traffic. Apple Insider and some other sources are reporting that Verizon will, unlike AT&T, offer unlimited data plans on Verizon, probably priced at $30/mo. This could help land those 10 million new customers that the Sanford Bernstein analyst predicts will come to Big Red. How Verizon handles this surge in data could make or break Verizon in heavy-use markets.
Expect the blogosphere to erupt tomorrow with iPhone postings.
No related posts.
Jon Mallin
Founder of Tech Bottle Blog. Attorney & Amateur Blogger. B.A. University of Michigan 1997 and J.D. NYU School of Law 2000.
Jon Mallin on Google+ (Preferred) --
@JonMallin on Twitter --
LinkedIN C.V. -- Email Jon@TBOTTLE.COM-
Neoavatara
