Verizon: Bringing the iPhone to Verizon is Entirely Apple’s Call

Submitted by lalit on October 26, 2009 - 11:31pm.

Talking at earnings conference call, Verizon’s CEO, Ivan Seidenberg said that the carrier would be happy to have iPhone on its network, but its Apple’s decision.

“This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court,” Seidenberg said. “Obviously we would be interested if they thought it would make sense for them to have us as a partner. And so we will leave it with them on that score…. We want to broaden the base of choice for customers, and hopefully along the way, Apple, as well as others, will decide to jump on the bandwagon.”

The above statement restarted the age-old myth, propagated by various analysts that iPhone will come to Verizon in 2010, when the company rolls out its new 4G LTE network. The two problems with this assumption are that Verizon will initially (in 2010 and 2011) use LTE network only for data devices and not for cellular phones. And second, Verizon will launch LTE network in only 25-30 markets in 2010, which means Apple will have to support CDMA network also, so that the iPhone would work around the country and not just in 25 cities.

If Apple does decide to bring iPhone to Verizon’s network in 2010 (which is highly unlikely), it won’t be based on LTE network. Apple will add CDMA support to the iPhone in that case.